Holy Hills of the Ozarks: Religion and Tourism in Branson, Missouri

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Notes

INTRODUCTION. “THE MORAL VINEYARDS”

1. Robert Fyan to his sister, 17 Apr. 1862, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri–Rolla, Rolla. The Ozarks is an approximately 40,000-square-mile area that encompasses southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and parts of Oklahoma and Kansas. Its boundaries are roughly delineated by a series of waterways that outline the region: the Missouri River in the north; the Arkansas River in the south; the Mississippi River in the east; the Black River in the southeast; and the Spring River in the southwest.

2. Ostling, “Of God and Greed,” 70; Ostling, “TV’s Unholy Row,” 60; Hanna Rosin, “Jim Bakker’s Revival,” Washington Post, 11 Aug. 1999, C1.

3. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Bilked Believers Forgiving of Jim Bakker,” Springfield News-Leader, 15 Sept. 2002, 8A; Todd, interview; Bill Smith, “Bakker Returns to TV Pulpit in Branson, Mo.,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 19 Nov. 2003, A13; “Flock Forgives Televangelist of His Trespasses,” Houston Chronicle, 26 Apr. 2003, 1.

4. David Usborne, “Bakker’s Back,” Independent on Sunday (UK), 15 June 2003, 1–2.

5. “Branson, Mo., Developer Proposes Christian-Themed Community,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 30 Jan. 2005, D8; Smith, “Bakker Returns to TV Pulpit in Branson, Mo.,” A13.

6. Frommer, Arthur Frommer’s Branson, 31; Merle Haggard quoted in “Arts and Leisure,” New York Times, 21 Aug. 1994, 28; Rafferty, Ozarks, 248; Charles Gusewelle quoted in Water & Fire: A Story of the Ozarks, prod. Michael Murphy, Kansas City Public Television (KCPT), 2000, videocassette.

7. Smith, “Melodrama, Popular Religion, and Literary Value,” 237; Millard, “Personality of Harold Bell Wright,” 464; Ferre, Social Gospel for Millions, 6–7.

8. Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, 77; Ammerman, “Golden Rule Christianity,” 201, 203, 211.

9. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Britain, 2–17.

10. Millard, “Personality of Harold Bell Wright,” 464.

11. Williams, Popular Religion in America, 7; Lippy, Being Religious American Style, 18; Orsi, “Everyday Miracles”; McDannell, Material Christianity.

12. Hulsether, “Interpreting the ‘Popular’ in Popular Religion,” 128–129.

13. Allcock, “Tourism as a Sacred Journey.”

14. Karlis, Grafanaki, and Abbas, “Leisure and Spirituality.”

15. Morgan, Puritan Family, 16; Daniels, Puritans at Play, 7, 17; Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment.

16. Moore, Selling God, 93. In the late 1960s, sociologist Peter Berger was the foremost critic of religious commodification. In The Sacred Canopy (1967), he claimed that this orientation damaged both the uniqueness of American denominational polities and the distinctiveness of their doctrines by forcing homogenization for the sake of mass appeal. Because of this focus on marketability, faith communities were losing their capacity to “legitimate” the world. See Berger, Sacred Canopy. For arguments that counter Berger and other secularization theorists while addressing issues of American religious consumption and the use of economic language to describe religious growth/decline in the United States, see Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing; Iannaccone, “Religious Markets and the Economics of Religion”; Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches Are Strong”; and Finke and Stark, Churching of America.

17. Orr, Pictorial Guide to the Falls of Niagara, 155. On the religious nature of nineteenth-century tourism, see Sears, Sacred Places.

18. Moore, Selling God, 149; Walt Whitman quoted in Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance, 25.

19. Brown, Inventing New England, 77–78, 99.

20. Messenger, Holy Leisure, 5, 26.

21. Gilmore, Ozark Baptizings, Hangings, and Other Diversions, 33–35.

22. The best source for information on outdoor religious dramas is the Institute of Outdoor Drama at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Founded in 1963, this organization documents the histories of such productions while providing leadership in fostering artistic and managerial excellence and expansion of the outdoor drama movement. See its Web site at www.unc.edu/depts/outdoor. On the history of American Passion plays, including the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, see Monk, “Passion Plays in the United States.”

23. On the Sacred Arts Complex, see the Great Passion Play’s Web site at www.greatpassionplay.com. Information on its history and development can also be gleaned from a biography of its controversial founder, Gerald L. K. Smith. See Jeansonne, Gerald L. K. Smith. On the Holy Land Experience, see the “What Is the Holy Land Experience.” Branson entertainment has also included a variant of the Bible museum genre. The traveling Fires of Devotion exhibit has stopped in town on a number of occasions since 1998. This display includes a tour of ancient artifacts, a multimedia presentation that tells the history of biblical versions and translations, and a full-size facsimile of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See Kathryn Buckstaff, “Exhibit Teaches Visitors the Story of the Bible,” Springfield News-Leader, 28–30 Aug. 1998, 15E.

24. Moore, Selling God, 251. For the most thorough description of Heritage USA, see FitzGerald, “Reflections.”

25. Moore, “Walt Disney World,” 216; The Project on Disney, Inside the Mouse, 7.

26. On Marian apparition sites in the United States, see Garvey, Searching for Mary. On pilgrimage as the central framework for all religious tourism, see Vukonic, Tourism and Religion.

27. Doug Johnson, “Leap of Faith Succeeds in Branson Attraction,” Washington Times, 29 Apr. 2000, E2.

28. On Walt Disney’s boyhood in Missouri, see Viets, “Walt Disney,” 50–55.

29. Freihofer, “Can You Solve the Mystery,” 3; Freihofer, “Heart of the Matter,” 4; Freihofer, “Planning an Effective Church Getaway,” 6.

30. LaRoe, “Ozarks Harmony,” 76.

31. Hulsether, “Interpreting the ‘Popular’ in Popular Religion,” 127.

32. Urry, “Social Relations, Space and Time,” 30; Desmond, Staging Tourism, xviii.

33. Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, Branson/Lakes Area 2005 Fact Sheet.

34. MacCannell, Tourist, 131, 160.

35. Tuan, “Space and Place,” 236; “Perfect American Town,” 25.

36. Strenski, Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History, 2; tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection.

37. Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, Branson/Lakes Area 2005 Fact Sheet.

38. Cohen, “Tourism as Play,” 291–304; Entrikin, Betweenness of Place, 134.

39. Randolph, Stiff as a Poker and Other Ozark Folk Tales, 5.

CHAPTER 1. “TEMPLES OF GOD’S OWN BUILDING”

1. Wright, To My Sons, 196.

2. Jones, “Brother Hal,” 395.

3. Dickinson, Best Books of Our Time, 201; Mott, Golden Multitudes. On the novels of Harold Bell Wright written after his departure from the ministry, see Ferre, Social Gospel for Millions, 90–97. Quantifying book sales continues to be a precarious undertaking and was even more problematic in the early twentieth century. Thus, numerical support for Wright’s popularity is partially suspect. For instance, newspaper accounts claim that for a period of twenty years his books outsold all others except the Bible. Furthermore, biographer Elsbery W. Reynolds wrote in 1916 that The Shepherd of the Hills was the “fourth most widely read book in the English language.” Perhaps offering a more accurate assessment, Harper and Brothers audited the records of his books’ sales prior to his death and found that an average of 737,443 copies were sold of each of his first twelve novels—a total of 10 million copies. The Shepherd of the Hills alone accounted for more than 2 million of these sales. See Deffenbaugh, “Ministry of Harold Bell Wright,” 29; Reynolds, Harold Bell Wright, 3; “Harold Bell Wright, Novelist, 72, Dead,” New York Times, 14 May 1944.

4. Hart, “One Hundred Leading Authors,” 287; Mencken, Prejudices, 32; Hawethorne, Harold Bell Wright, 104; Tagg, Harold Bell Wright, 42.

5. Milstead, “Harold Bell Wright,” 501; Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 284.

6. Reynolds, Harold Bell Wright, 4 (first published for free distribution by the Chicago Book Supply Co.); Jones, “Brother Hal,” 391–393; Wright, To My Sons, 200.

7. Wright, To My Sons, 141–142. On the history of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), see McAllister and Tucker, Journey in Faith, and Garrett, Stone-Campbell Movement.

8. Jones, “Brother Hal,” 395–396.

9. Wright, To My Sons, 201.

10. “Harold Bell Wright Memorial Library,” 1; Wright, To My Sons, 203, 204; “Harold Bell Wright” (in Lawrence County Historical Society Bulletin), 26; “Harold Bell Wright Found His Calling in a Little Church in Pierce City, Mo.,” Daily Reporter (Independence, KS), 30 Jan. 2000, 5.

11. Wright, To My Sons, 208, 216–217. On the history of Pittsburg, Kansas, see the special centennial issue of the Pittsburg (KS) Morning Sun, 20 May 1976. Although beginning with an initial press run of 50,000 copies in 1895, the Appeal boasted a circulation of more than 750,000 by 1913. On Wayland and the Appeal to Reason, see Green, Grass-Roots Socialism; Quint, “Julius A. Wayland”; and Nord, “Appeal to Reason and American Socialism.”

12. Gladden, Applied Christianity. On the Social Gospel movement, see Handy, Social Gospel in America, and Hutchinson, Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism.

13. Wright, To My Sons, 106; Ferre, Social Gospel for Millions, 8. On the anti-intellectual and populist tendencies of early American evangelicalism, see Hofstadter, Anti- Intellectualism in American Life, and Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity.

14. Wright, That Printer of Udell’s, 74–75. In his autobiography, Wright noted the influence of Charles Sheldon (pastor of Central Congregational Church in Topeka, Kansas, from 1889 to 1924) on the socially oriented Christianity espoused within That Printer of Udell’s. See Wright, To My Sons, 211.

15. Van Doren, American Novel, 269; Ferre, Social Gospel for Millions, 67–68.

16. Pastoral Call, 6 Dec. 1904; Wright, To My Sons, 207.

17. Madsen, History, 6–7; Ross, Old Matt’s View of It, 15; Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 23–25. The year in which Wright first encountered the Rosses is a cause for contention. Some claim that he was introduced to the family by a mutual friend in 1903 while spending a year recuperating from poor health in Aurora, Missouri. The Shepherd of the Hills Historical Society, an organization that produces the only authorized theatrical production of the novel, claims that he visited in 1896 while taking a break from his pastorate in Pittsburg and boarded at the homestead when his horse was unable to cross the flooded White River. While these events accord with those described above, this dating seems erroneous. In his autobiography and in other historical sources cited throughout this chapter, Wright’s ministry in Pittsburg is said to have begun in the fall of 1898. Thus, perhaps this is yet another case of the fusing of fact and fiction that epitomizes much of the history of the Branson tourism industry. For a synopsis of these various dates and accounts, see Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 11–13.

18. On Wright’s time in Lebanon, Missouri, see Don O. Vernon, “Harold Bell Wright Reminiscences Recalled by Don O. Vernon,” Lebanon (MO) Rustic Republican, 31 May 1944; Tudor, “Famed Author Harold Bell Wright”; Eric D. Tudor, “‘Shepherd of the Hills’ Author Drew Inspiration from Lebanon,” Lebanon (MO) Daily Record, 1 Feb. 1999, 2B; and Jones, “Brother Hal,” 408–409.

19. Ferre, Social Gospel for Millions, 2–3.

20. The multifaceted function of the rural church proposed by Country Life advocates is succinctly stated in the 1910 minutes of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA’s Department of Church and Country Life. The board stated that the department will “endeavor to restore the country church to the place it once had in the religious activities of the country—to make it the potent factor in every community of social and moral regeneration, of intellectual and spiritual life.” This sentiment was not only embraced by individual denominations but also found currency among mainline Protestant federations such as the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, which created an office in 1912 to serve as a clearinghouse for information from the formal and informal denominational Country Life efforts. On Christian church involvement in the Country Life Movement, see Swanson, “‘Country Life Movement’ and the American Churches,” and Gall, “Presbyterians, Warren Wilson, and the Country Life Movement.”

21. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 13; Wilson, Church of the Open Country, 74–75. Also see Bowers, Country Life Movement in America.

22. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 170–174; Mills, White Collar, 9.

23. Smith, “Melodrama, Popular Religion, and Literary Value,” 218; Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 170–174. On the Men and Religion Forward Movement, see Bederman, “‘Women Have Had Charge of the Church Work Long Enough.’” On the masculinity of Christ as portrayed in popular religious art, see Morgan, Visual Piety, 97–123. On the history of the YMCA, see Mjagkij and Spratt, Men and Women Adrift.

24. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 180–181.

25. Ibid., 57, 287.

26. Ibid., 265; Munday, “Wright Trail,” 118.

27. Patten, New Basis of Civilization, 61; Ferre, Social Gospel for Millions, 77. In Lears, Fables of Abundance, the author insists that the dominance of corporate advertising in the early twentieth century promoted both a physical and psychological perfectionism within consumers and that this strategy was meant to erode essential ties between humans and nature by prompting an embrace of capitalist technology. Like Wright, Lears expressed disgust over the orchestration of selves undertaken by people who stand to profit from unlimited consumption, and he seemed to hope for a reactualization of rustic insularity as well as that social order’s accompanying morality of personal sacrifice and selflessness. Both Wright’s early twentieth-century and Lears’s late twentieth-century apprehensions rested on a fear that commodity-made selves would triumph or have been victorious over selves grounded in deep-seated ethics and strong, individualized emotion. Thus, although many of Wright’s critics opined that his texts were nothing but sentimental schmaltz, one of his central concerns has been at the forefront of social criticism and the analysis of American capitalism for nearly a century.

28. Wright, “What about God,” 90, 102.

29. Wright, Calling of Dan Matthews, 105–106. Wright’s disdain for sectarian machinations was further articulated in The Uncrowned King. Here the author offers an allegory that provides yet another argument for the unification of all Christian churches. Similar to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Wright’s story tells of his hero’s journey to the “Outer-Edge-of-Things” and the “Beautiful Sea.” After many trials and travails, he is allowed to enter the “Temple of Truth” only after affirming that he has denied the “Wealth of Traditions,” “Holy Prejudices,” “Sacred Opinion,” and the “Honors of the World.” Ultimately, a singular mode of simple and forthright worship is deemed all that is necessary for salvation, with the antidenominationalism of The Calling of Dan Matthews permeating the work’s pages.

30. 1 Cor. 12:20, 12:26, 3:18 (NRSV).

31. Wright, Calling of Dan Matthews, 172, 183, 187.

32. Ibid., 346. In God and the Groceryman, a sequel to The Calling of Dan Matthews written to boost the sale of Wright’s literature by means of a return to Ozark-based novels, this theme of applied Christianity outside the confines of the institutional church continues to be invoked. In the novel, Dan Matthews has become an immensely prosperous businessman but believes he has failed to make a true ministry of his work. The text addresses Dan’s attempts to correct this failure by incorporating all the churches of Westover into a unified whole. In conjunction with his on-site agent, John Saxton, Matthews plans a church with no denominational tie which follows a simple rendering of Christ’s teachings. Furthermore, through the analogy of the groceryman, Wright emphasizes that Christian ethics must be integrated into all that one does, even if engaged in the seemingly secular and mundane undertaking of a shopkeeper. See Wright, God and the Groceryman.

33. Wright, To My Sons, 252.

34. Howard, Walkin’ Preacher of the Ozarks, 36. In The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, the protagonist is, at the story’s commencement, an unethical bank clerk who steals money from his employers to fund his wife’s extravagant lifestyle and the couple’s frivolous and profligate “jazz age” routine. Discovering his spouse’s infidelity, Brian attempts suicide by drowning but is saved by his elderly Ozark relative, Aunt Sue. Through the good works and righteous attitudes of Aunt Sue and her companion, Judy Taylor, the protagonist regains his ethical standards. Brian is thus “re-created” physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually by a now familiar pairing of upright Ozarkers and resplendent Ozark geography.

35. “‘Walkin’ Preacher’ Dies,” Springfield Leader & Press, 13 May 1966, 13; “Ozarks Have Had Two Walking Preachers,” 51. Though perhaps the most famous, Guy Howard was not the first person to be dubbed the Ozarks “Walkin’ Preacher.” John Crockett, D.D. (also referred to as the “Bishop of the Ozarks”), often preached at the Stone Chapel in Forsyth, Missouri, and was for a short time president of the School of the Ozarks. Beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing into the 1930s, he ministered throughout the hills and founded myriad remote congregations. On Crockett, see “Ozarks Have Had Two Walking Preachers,” and Baker, “Bishop of the Ozarks.”

36. Howard, Walkin’ Preacher of the Ozarks, 182, 177, 52.

37. Ronald Reagan to Mrs. Jean B. Wright, 13 Mar. 1984. This letter is on display at the Harold Bell Wright Museum, Shepherd of the Hills Homestead and Outdoor Drama, Branson, Missouri. Numerous other examples of The Shepherd of the Hills influence could also be noted. For instance, prominent Ozark folklorist and tourism booster Otto Rayburn wrote, “I am deeply indebted to Harold Bell Wright. He opened my eyes. Without him I might have missed the Ozarks entirely.” See Rayburn, Forty Years in the Ozarks, 18, 54.

38. Millard, “Personality of Harold Bell Wright,” 464; Smith, “Melodrama, Popular Religion, and Literary Value,” 225; Overton, American Nights Entertainment, 120. Furthermore, in New York Times book reviews from 1919 and 1921, critics noted that Wright had a “predestined audience . . . in little towns all over the country,” and they furthered attacks on his popularly consumable romanticism by claiming that he continued to make appeals to the “obviousness of American yokels.” See New York Times Book Review, 31 Aug. 1919 and 28 Aug. 1921.

39. Morrow, “Wright Connection (Part I),” 19. The original correspondences between Marian Wright Powers and Harold Bell Wright are housed at the Powers Museum in Carthage, Missouri.

40. Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 62–68, 10; Myers-Phinney, “Arcadia in the Ozarks,” 7.

41. Myers-Phinney, “Arcadia in the Ozarks,” 10; “Galena, Missouri,” 50. Lynn Morrow and Linda Myers-Phinney write that “the float trip provided an exotic adventure to relax impatient capitalists and calm the anxieties, real or perceived, of urban living.” Thus, a theme of Ozark antimodernism still perpetuated in the modern day finds its roots in this early tourist draw. See Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 115.

42. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 292, 259, 288; Morrow Postcard Collection.

43. “Presbyterian Hill Purchased Long Ago by Springfield Men,” Springfield Press, ca.1929, Shepard Room Collection; “Presbyterian Mecca Overlooks Hollister,” Springfield Leader, 25 Sept. 1925, 2–4; Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 155–156, 161. The earliest institutionalized church in Branson was affiliated with the Presbyterian faith. Dedicated in April 1911, the Branson Presbyterian Church was erected at the corner of Fourth and Pacific streets, a short distance up the hill from the White River. See Godsey, “Branson Presbyterian Church,” and Kathryn Buckstaff, “Restoring Branson’s First Church,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 June 1998, 3B. There had been a Presbyterian presence in southwestern Missouri since the 1820s, when missionaries arrived to evangelize the Osage Indians. The first formal churches were built in the early 1840s. Even prior to the construction of the Branson church, Stone County hosted the Crane Presbyterian Church (organized in 1905), and E. E. Stringfield mentions Stone County’s Pierson Cumberland Presbyterian Church and Taney County’s Forsyth Southern Presbyterian Church in Presbyterianism in the Ozarks.

44. “Program, Mid-Summer Meeting of The Ozarkians,” 1928, Wiley Collection; Shepherd of the Hills Estates brochure, ca. 1927, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri–Rolla, Rolla; Smith, “Melodrama, Popular Religion, and Literary Value,” 239.

45. Presbyterian Hill brochure, “Where Will You Spend Your Vacation?” ca. 1920, Shepard Room Collection; Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 157–158; “To the Honorable County Court and All Other Good Citizens of Taney County, Missouri,” White River Leader, 5 Feb. 1915.

46. “Presbyterian Mecca Overlooks Hollister,” 4; Presbyterian Hill brochure, “Where Will You Spend Your Vacation?”

47. Vincent, Chautauqua Movement, 4; Tapia, Circuit Chautauqua.

48. Hively, “When the Chautauqua Came to Town,” 41; “Missouri Committee Recommends Offer Hollister Properties to Southern Baptists,” Word & Way, 19 Sept. 1946; Vincent, Chautauqua Movement, 13.

49. Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 162–163.

50. Ibid., 162–164; White River Booster League, “Come to Lake Taneycomo and the White River Country: The Vacation Paradise of the Ozarks,” 1940, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri–Rolla; Milstead, “Harold Bell Wright,” 502; Morrow Postcard Collection.

51. Van Buskirk, “Kanakuk Kamps,” 187–188; “History of Kanakuk”; Wright, To My Sons, 43, 120, 104.

52. Van Buskirk, “Kanakuk Kamps”; “History of Kanakuk”; Wright, To My Sons, 43, 120, 104.

53. Ifkovic, “Harold Bell Wright and the Minister of Man,” 24.

54. Wright, Ma Cinderella; Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 302.

55. Milstead, “Harold Bell Wright,” 501; Meadows, Short Stories and Poems of the Ozark Hills, 63. Commenting on the effects of Wright’s literature on the Ross family, local historian Phyllis Rossiter wrote that “it has been said that they never forgave” Wright for “betraying their friendship” and forcing them to deal with scandalous and untrue allegations about a ruined daughter. See Rossiter, Living History of the Ozarks, 203.

56. Wright, To My Sons, 242.

CHAPTER 2. “HILLS OF TRUTH AND LOVE”

1. Nahum Tate (son of Dow Tate), phone interview; Morrow Postcard Collection.

2. Dow Tate to Sammy Emmie Tate, 29 July 1913 (in the author’s collection and used with the permission of Nahum Tate).

3. Ibid.

4. MacCannell, Tourist, 131, 160; Boorstin, Image, 77–117; Taylor, “Authenticity and Sincerity in Tourism,” 8.

5. Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity, 93; Cohen, “Tourism as Play,” 294.

6. Eco, Travels in Hyperreality; Baudrillard, Simulations; MacCannell, Tourist, 6–7.

7. Urry, “Sociology of Tourism,” 51; Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of Tradition; Culler, “Semiotics of Tourism”; Duncan, “Social Construction of Unreality.” On authenticity theories and their relationship to tourism studies, see Wang, “Rethinking Authenticity in Tourism Experience”; Hughes, “Authenticity in Tourism”; and Taylor, “Authenticity and Sincerity in Tourism.”

8. “There’s Gold in Those Ozark Hills,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 29 Aug. 1965, quoted in Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 32; Morrow, “Old Matt’s Cabin,” 29; Hendrickson, “Book People Come True,” 193; Shepherd of the Hills Historical Society, Inc., Shepherd of the Hills Souvenir Program 1976, 8.

9. Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 28.

10. Harold Bell Wright to W. Gibbons Lacy, 1 Sept. 1932, Godsey Papers.

11. Morrow, “Wright Connection (Part II),” 18; “Sammy Lane Boat Line” brochure; Terry, “Shepherd of the Hills,” 4.

12. “Storied Locality Is Objective of Local Travelers,” Decatur (GA) Review, 17 Aug. 1930.

13. Kathryn Buckstaff, “David and Karen Cushman Plan Few Changes to Branson’s Oldest Resort,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 Mar. 2001, 8A; Tinsley, “Old Branson”; DuBois, “Early Days on Taneycomo,” 22.

14. Hendrickson, “Book People Come True,” 193; Ross, Old Matt’s View of It, 9, 18, 17.

15. Morrill, Story of Uncle Ike. In the nearly one hundred years since the publication of The Shepherd of the Hills, there have been a multitude of publications that seek to verify or falsify the actual identities of the novel’s characters. Other works include Grizzard, Characters and Community of the Shepherd of the Hills; Stout, “Memories of Sammie Lane” (here the author claims to be the daughter of Jim Lane and sister of Sammy Lane); and Madsen, History. This last publication continues to be sold at the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead and Outdoor Drama and speaks to the historical authenticity of all the novel’s sites and characters.

16. Madsen, History, 43; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Objects of Ethnography,” 414; Munday, “Wright Trail,” 121–122.

17. Madsen, History, 45; Spurlock, Over the Old Ozark Trails, 26. Spurlock, more than any local booster, was responsible for preserving the legacy of Wright’s “authentic” characters. In 1924, she initiated a monument fund to erect a grave marker for John and Anna Ross in the Shepherd of the Hills Cemetery which identified them as “Old Matt” and “Aunt Molly.” Additionally, her tourist lectures constantly witnessed to truthful links between regional personalities and Wright’s characters. As poet and Branson resident John G. Neihardt wrote in the foreword to Over the Old Ozark Trails in the Shepherd of the Hills Country, “Her talks to tourists have served to give a ‘local habitation and a name’ to this or that fictitious character in the famous tale.”

18. Spurlock, Over the Old Ozark Trails, 28–29, 15.

19. Terry, “Shepherd of the Hills,” 4; Laugeson, “Old Matt’s Cabin,” 8; “Shepherd Legend Still Growing,” Springfield News & Leader, 4 Aug. 1957, C1.

20. Rossiter, Living History of the Ozarks, 203; Robbins, “A’ Lyin’ to Them Tourists,” 19.

21. Herbert, “Literary Places, Tourism and the Heritage Experience,” 312; Schouten, “Heritage as Historical Reality,” 21; Madsen, History, 35; Morrow Postcard Collection.

22. Ozark Guide Yearbook (1962): 8; “Jim Lane’s Cabin,” 7; Madsen, History, 35; Pipes, Fabulous Barefoot Horizons, 82; Ozark Guide Yearbook (1964): 32, 38–39.

23. Springfield Leader & Press, 25 Feb. 1946, 10.

24. Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 30.

25. Powell, “Red Letter Books Relating to Missouri,” 353; Hartman, “Shepherd of the Hills Drama,” 6; Flannagan, Arena, 150.

26. Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 29–31; Shepherd of the Hills movie brochure (1919).

27. Review of The Shepherd of the Hills, New York Times, 31 July 1941, 13.

28. Review of The Shepherd of the Hills, Variety, 18 June 1941, 16.

29. Madsen, Branson, 24.

30. Waldo Powell, whose father was believed by many local residents to be the model for the Shepherd in Wright’s novel, is said by Newsweek to have “groaned throughout the performance.” Additionally, in a manner complicit with the stereotypes presented in Paramount’s film, the magazine closed its article by noting that, despite the chagrin of Branson residents, “no studio official has been reported missing in the hills.” See Newsweek, 21 July 1941, 52.

31. Townsend Godsey, “The Shepherd” (essay), 1957, 60, Godsey Papers.

32. Thompson, “Saga of the Shepherd of the Hills, Part II,” 27; Pipes, “Meet the People in the Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 55; Eddie Bass, “A Place to Show Ozarks Culture,” Springfield News & Leader, 13 Aug. 1950, D3.

33. Angus, “Rose O’Neill,” 122; Gilmore, “Rose O’Neill’s Bonniebrook,” 19. Also see O’Neill, Story of Rose O’Neill.

34. Cochran, Vance Randolph, 170; Angus, “Rose O’Neill,” 122–123; Abernathy and Trimble, Rose O’Neill. Rose O’Neill died in 1944, but Bonniebrook continues as a tourist attraction. The mansion was destroyed by fire in 1947, but a replica was completed in 1993 with funds raised by the Bonniebrook Historical Society and is open to tourists from April through November. In addition, the International Rose O’Neill Club was formed in Branson in 1967. Hundreds of club members and collectors meet in Branson each year to celebrate the four-day convention known as Kewpiesta.

35. Alma Jones Laugeson, A Day at the Shepherd of the Hills Farm, 1964, 8, Shepard Room Collection. Artistic representations of angelic children in heavenly scenes continue to draw tourists to the Ozarks. On average, 500,000–750,000 people per year visit the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri. Precious Moments, the world’s most popular collectible items, are porcelain figurines inscribed with sayings that promote family, religion, or basic moral tropes. Sam Butcher, the creator of these figurines, has described his journey to Carthage as divinely inspired and has decorated his chapel with murals of his collectibles situated in biblical scenes. Some pilgrims claim to have received divine aid during their visits, and for many more, the site functions as a shrine for ritual purification by dispelling anxieties about both this life and the promised hereafter. The chapel’s feature mural, “Hallelujah Square,” depicts the entrance into heaven and saintly children who have already gained admittance. The majority of these figures represent people who have died over the past fifteen years, and guides narrate the horrible deaths suffered by these individuals and the joy loved ones have experienced by seeing the afterlife portrayed in such a benign fashion. In a 1984 interview, Butcher stated, “Precious Moments is the pulpit that I preach behind. People who won’t go to church to hear the same message will go to the store and buy it.” This quotation strikes at the heart of popular religion in the Ozarks by reflecting its extraecclesiastical nature, its alliance with lived experience, and its partnership with consumer culture. See Ketchell, “Precious Moments Chapel,” 27–33.

36. Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 44; Albers, interview; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson Rings in Season with Record Parade,” Springfield News-Leader, 4 Dec. 1995, 1A. Although the contemporary Adoration Parade is a boon for newly burgeoned Christmas-season tourism in Branson, organizers have fought to keep corporations from advertising as part of the celebration. Claiming to represent the true spirit of the holiday, parade planners implicate the event in a “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” ideology by symbolically and materially banishing evidence of rampant Christmastime consumption. Though the late 1990s witnessed numerous local entertainment venues that decided to stay open through the winter as part of an “Ozark Mountain Christmas” campaign, and though thousands of tourists consume these offerings in conjunction with their attendance of the parade, the pageant’s explicitly Christian nature is said to be preserved through its “noncommercial” approach. See Kathryn Buckstaff, “Penguins, Camels and Dogs, Oh My,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 Dec. 1996, 1B, and “Parade Banishes Ads,” Springfield News-Leader, 5 Dec. 1997, 10A.

37. Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 37–42; Hartman, “Shepherd of the Hills Drama,” 7–8.

38. Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 44–50.

39. Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 31; Trimble, Story of Old Matt of the Shepherd of the Hills, 13. In 1968, Grossett and Dunlap estimated that it had sold one million copies per year of its edition of The Shepherd of the Hills during a seventeen-year period. See Gideon, “Shepherd’s Show,” 9. Since 1957, four additional statues have been added to the display atop Inspiration Point, all crafted by Ozark native Michael Lee. See Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 35.

40. Thompson, “Saga of the Shepherd of the Hills, Part II,” 27–28; Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 32; Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 59. Roughly in conjunction with the first performance by the Old Mill Players, television station KYTV in Springfield aired a narrated musical production of Wright’s novel. Actors were cast from the drama department at Central Missouri State College at Warrensburg, and a fourteen-verse “Ballad of the Shepherd of the Hills,” composed by Will Mercer, accompanied much of the play’s action. Sponsorship for this production came from local businesses and civic groups, including the Shepherd of the Hills Farm, Marvel Cave, the Retail Merchants Committee of Branson, and the chamber of commerce. See TV Radio Mirror, Apr. 1960.

41. Thompson, “Saga of the Shepherd of the Hills, Part II,” 28; Thompson, “Saga of the Shepherd of the Hills, Part III,” 56.

42. Laugeson, Day at the Shepherd of the Hills Farm.

43. Ibid., 21.

44. Lake Area Parish of the United Presbyterian Church, “Worship in the Outdoors” brochure, 1965, Shepard Room Collection. Though there is no evidence to suggest that Sunday morning services continued to be conducted at the Shepherd of the Hills Farm into the 1970s, a 1971 souvenir program does advertise “Sunday Night Gospel Sings.” This program is supplemented by ever present praise of the area’s inhabitants and geography, including a testimony from the U.S. representative from Missouri, Durward G. Hall, who proclaimed that the attraction “has nurtured and preserved our most valuable principles and traditions” by recognizing the merit of “simple truths.” See the Shepherd of the Hills Historical Society, Inc., Shepherd of the Hills Souvenir Program, 1971.

45. Gene Gideon, “‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Enters 14th Season,” Shepherd of the Hills Farm press release, Jan. 1973, Shepard Room Collection; Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 61–66; Gideon, “Shepherd’s Show,” 9; Thompson, “Saga of the Shepherd of the Hills, Part III,” 58. Although very popular, the production at the Shepherd of the Hills Farm outshined national rivals primarily because it had a longer season than any other outdoor drama. Running six months, it thus easily surpassed attendance at other well-liked productions such as Unto These Hills (a Cherokee, North Carolina, performance about the Eastern Band of Cherokee), Spearfish, South Dakota’s Black Hills Passion Play, or the Shepherd of the Hills Farm’s only local competitor, The Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

46. Mike Penprase, “Branson Man Buys Shepherd of the Hills,” Springfield Daily News, 5 Nov. 1985, 2A; Rossiter, Living History of the Ozarks, 205.

47. Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 35; Rossiter, Living History of the Ozarks, 205.

48. Don Mahnken, “Extended Tourist Season Works,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 27 Dec. 1988, 3B, 4B; Van Buskirk, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 35.

49. Steve Koehler, “‘Shepherd’ Novel Kept Current,” Kansas City (MO) Star, 6 June 2004, B5; Thurman, interview; Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 72.

50. Frizell, “History of ‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ Dramatizations,” 79; post to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch online forum, 4 June 2003, http://forums.stltoday.com/viewtopic.php?t=63742&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=branson&start=20. (In an attempt to solicit opinions from Branson tourists concerning their experiences in the Ozarks, in June 2003 I began posting online queries to newspaper forums in St. Louis, Tulsa, Dallas, Wichita, Des Moines, Memphis, Shreveport, and Topeka. The comment quoted in the text was in response to my queries.) A possible explanation for a conflating of the Shepherd of the Hills pageant with a Passion play is the nearness of the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas—roughly an hour south of Branson.

51. “Christian Family Weekend.” This more explicit contemporary fusion of religion and popular culture was also evident during my recent visit to a gift shop at the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead. There I purchased a T-shirt that bore the Oscar Meyer hotdog logo with the company’s name replaced by “Jesus Christ.” Underneath, a caption reads, “My Savior Has a First Name, It’s J-E-S-U-S . . . “(an obvious play on the company’s well-known jingle). Perhaps to indicate that such a juxtaposition is not welcomed or well received in all of Oscar Meyer’s markets, the shirt also includes the words “Branson, MO,” thus suggesting that at least in this town faith trumps consumption, or alternately, that faith is readily available for consumption.

52. “Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theater.”

53. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 164, 82–83, 28–44.

CHAPTER 3. “I WOULD MUCH RATHER SEE A SERMON THAN HEAR ONE”

1. Goforth, “Not Your Parent’s Branson” (Kansas City) Metro Voice 14, no. 6 (2003): 24.

2. Stacey Hamby, “Silver Dollar City: Owners Build Empire on Christian Principles,” Word & Way, 10 June 1999, 9; S. T. Lambert’s comments were posted as a review of Silver Dollar City on the Epinions.com Web site, 31 Dec. 2000, www.epinions.com/kifm-review-2307-2039366B-3A4F0229-prod4 (accessed 15 July 2005).

3. Thompson, “Herschends,” 37–38; Gubernick, “Curb on the Ego,” 418–420.

4. Crystal Cody, “Silver Dollar City Hits Slump,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 8 Aug. 2003, 3.

5. Rafferty, Ozarks, 8; Sears, Sacred Places, 38; The Visionaries: The Herschends of Branson, MO, dir. Dave Hargis and prod. Roy Speckman, Universal Midwest Media, 1992, videocassette. Missouri boasts more caves than any other state. See Weaver, Wilderness Underground, for a further examination.

6. McCall, “‘Down Under’ at Silver Dollar City,” 42; Martin, Official Guide to Marvel Cave, 14. Despite Martin’s assertion, Marble (later “Marvel”) Cave has primarily been described in a language of religiously inspired awe. However, other Ozark caves have been bestowed with a more demonic character. For instance, regional promoter Otto Ernest Rayburn detailed a 1949 trip by students from the University of Tulsa who came to the area looking for a fissure labeled the “Opening into Hell.” The group was motivated by Native American lore that depicted a “hole that spits fire,” but the students failed to locate such a devilish cavern. See Rayburn, “Opening into Hell,” 35.

7. Madsen, History, 30; Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 38–40.

8. Emery, “Description of Marble Cave, Missouri,” 614–615. The notion of Ozark healing waters apparently still held currency as late as 1929. In an article from that year, travel writer J. Fred Long wrote that “a myriad of underground streams and rivers” possesses “purifying lime rocks, curative magnesium deposits and invigorating mineral elements that beset every molecule of water coursing through to implant in it the purity and health-giving qualities that are evident at once in the water visitors see gushing out of hill sides and chasm bottoms.” See J. Fred Long, “Oldest Land on the Western Hemisphere Rediscovered by Vacationists,” Ozarks, 1929, Wiley Collection.

9. Rafferty, Ozarks, 200–204; Westfall and Osterhage, Fame Not Easily Forgotten, 2, 7. On late nineteenth-century accounts of Eureka Springs’ spa tourism, see Cutter, Cutter’s Guide to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and Kalklasch, Healing Fountain. After the turn of the twentieth century, many Americans began to view modern medicine with less skepticism, and fewer people sought healing spas. Claiming to be the fourth largest city in the state in 1900, Eureka Springs saw its population drop to roughly 1,400 by 1960.

10. Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 40–42; Martin, Official Guide to Marvel Cave, 16. In a semantic move that seems to indicate that investors changed their focus from health spa development to mineral extraction, the mining town’s name was changed to Marmaros (Greek for “marble”) in 1886. See Madsen, History, 30.

11. “Pioneer of Ozark Awakening,” 9; Miles H. Scott, “The Marvelous Cave,” White River Valley Historical Quarterly 8, no. 10 (1985): 4–5; Thompson, “Herschends,” 38.

12. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 24–25; Bohner, “It All Started with a Hole in the Ground,” 32.

13. “Mystery of Marble Cave,” White River Leader, 13 Dec. 1913; Tidgwell, “Marvel of a Cave,” 27; Scientific American 68 (1893): 65; Noble, “Creatures of Perpetual Night,” 432, 430.

14. Martin, Official Guide to Marvel Cave, 21; Chandler, “Tale of Two Men Leads to One City,” 26. By the time that Miriam and Genevieve assumed ownership of Marvel Cave, a number of similar attractions could be found in Stone and Taney counties. A tourism map produced about 1930 by the Missouri State Department of Resource Development details four other caverns within a short distance from Marvel Cave (Indian Creek Caverns, Keithley Cave, Wonder Cave, and Fairy Cave.) The most popular of these, Fairy Cave (now Talking Rocks Cavern), was opened by Waldo Powell, son of Truman Powell and the supposed model for Harold Bell Wright’s Ollie Stewart character. See Missouri State Department of Resource Development, “The White River Country of Missouri,” ca. 1930, Wiley Collection.

15. Marge of Sunrise Farm, “Fresh from the Hills . . . Ozark Cave Women,” ca. 1944, Shepard Room Collection; Milstead, “Harold Bell Wright,” 502.

16. Martin, Official Guide to Marvel Cave, 24; Madsen, History, 30; McCall, “‘Down Under’ at Silver Dollar City,” 43.

17. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 23; McCall, “‘Down Under’ at Silver Dollar City,” 43; Martin, Official Guide to Marvel Cave, 54.

18. Thompson, “Herschends,” 37–38; Doug Johnson, “Leap of Faith Succeeds in Branson Attraction,” Washington Times, 29 Apr. 2000, E2; William Childress, “A City as Popular as Pretzels,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5 Apr. 1997, 7T.

19. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 39–44; “Branson Mainstays Continue to Thrive,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 Aug. 1996, 68.

20. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 40; Thompson, “Herschends,” 39; William Childress, “Silver Dollar City Gets Worldly,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 27 Apr. 1997, 8T.

21. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 51; “Mary Herschend Dies at 83,” Branson Beacon & Leader, 21 Mar. 1983, 1.

22. Silver Dollar City Chamber of Commerce, “Silver Dollar City in Marvel Cave Park” brochure, Shepard Room Collection; Hartman, “Alf Bolin’s Reign of Terror,” 127–130; Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 58.

23. Schickel, Disney Version, 267; Doctorow, Book of Daniel, 289.

24. On the use of religious and spiritual language to describe Disneyland and Disney World, see King, “Disneyland and Walt Disney World,” and Salamone and Salamone, “Images of Main Street.”

25. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 126, 58–59.

26. Peggy Soric, “A Temple of Wood, a Message of Truth,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 July 1986, 4B.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.; Roebuck, “Coaster Thrills and Mountain Skills,” 48; Kathryn Buckstaff, “They’re Getting Married in a Theme Park,” Springfield-News Leader, 9 June 1997, 3B.

29. Soric, “Temple of Wood,” 4B; Deeds, interview.

30. Ron Sylvester, “There’s Silver in These Hills,” Springfield News-Leader, 13 Feb. 2000, 3B; “Mary Herschend Dies at 83,” 1.

31. Chandler, “Silver Dollar City’s Future Is Its Past,” 23, 27–29; Brunson, “Behind the Boom in Branson, Mo.,” 49; Roebuck, “Coaster Thrills and Mountain Skills,” 48; Thompson, “Herschends,” 69; Freihofer, “From ‘Sorta’ . . . to Saved,” 37.

32. Daly, “Church at Risk,” 1–6.

33. Kellogg, interview; Johnson, “Leap of Faith,” E2.

34. Moore, Selling God, 244–248; Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism, 402–403, 470–473; Wacker, “Searching for Eden with a Satellite Dish,” 441.

35. Corliss, “If Heaven Ain’t a Lot Like Disney,” 80; Ostling, “Of God and Greed,” 70; Ostling, “TV’s Unholy Row,” 60; Johnson, “Leap of Faith,” E2; “New Jim Bakker TV Show Acquires Camelot,” 10.

36. Johnson, “Leap of Faith,” E2; Herschend, interview; Hamby, “Silver Dollar City,” 9.

37. Jack Herschend quoted in Roebuck, “Coaster Thrills and Mountain Skills,” 48.

38. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Ozarker Spearheads Nazareth Village,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 May 2002, 2B.

39. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 126; Doug Johnson, “Branson’s Silver Dollar City Theme Park Takes a Christian Slant,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, 21 May 2000, 10G; Roebuck, “Coaster Thrills and Mountain Skills,” 48; Bates, “Herschends Turn SDC into Multi-Million Dollar Empire,” 3–4. The Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation’s explicitly Christian mission statement has not been without controversy. Its southern-themed attraction located within Stone Mountain State Park in Georgia was leased from the state for thirty years. Originally the mission statement was posted on Web sites for the park. However, after the American Civil Liberties Union raised questions about advertising a public park as a Christian space, its religious references were removed in December 2000. Additionally, in November 2000, Stone Mountain management withdrew a question from its telephone surveys which asks visitors to rate the park’s “Christian atmosphere.” See “Silver Dollar City Alters Mission Statement,” Springfield News-Leader, 15 Dec. 2000, 1A.

40. Orville Conrad and Alicia Bolin’s comments were posted to the Silver Dollar City Fan Club Web site, 12 July 2005, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SDCFans/message/866 and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SDCFans/message/865.

41. Roebuck, “Coaster Thrills and Mountain Skills,” 48.

42. Thompson, “Herschends,” 39; Sarah B. Hansen, “Silver Dollar City Turns to Gold,” Springfield News-Leader, 17 Dec. 1990, 2D; Gubernick, “Curb on the Ego,” 418–420; “For New Operations Chief, First Priority Is to ‘Glorify God’,” USA Today, 30 Apr. 1987, 7A; “Higher Calling,” Springfield Business Journal, 3–9 Aug. 1998, 2.

43. Elliot, “Ozark Mountain Magic,” 58; Carolyn Olson, “Theme Park Offers Award-Winning Entertainment, Christian Values,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 14 May 2000, T3; “Silver Dollar City.”

44. “Group to Be at Silver Dollar City,” Baxter Bulletin (Mountain Home, AR), 4 Sept. 2004, 1B.

45. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Veggie Tales Takes Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 June 2002, 10B; “Veggie Tales Phenomenon Hits Branson,” PR Newswire, 3 June 2002; John Wooley, “Silver Dollar City Launches Kids’ Fest Celebration,” Tulsa World, 9 June 2002, 7.

46. Arline Chandler, “Village Celebrates a Story More Precious Than a Silver Dollar,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 24 Oct. 1999, 1H.

47. Johnson, “Branson’s Silver Dollar City Theme Park,” 10G; Juliana Goodwin, “Christian Soldier Mounts K.C. Crusade,” Springfield News-Leader, 7 Oct. 2004, 1A; Noll, American Evangelical Christianity, 50–51.

48. Brunson, “Behind the Boom in Branson, Mo.,” 49; Hamby, “Silver Dollar City,” 9; Roebuck, “Coaster Thrills and Mountain Skills,” 48.

49. Silver Dollar City promotional booklet, “Sharing and Caring in the Spirit of Community,” 2002, in the author’s collection.

50. Tom Uhlenbrock, “Branson Cheers President’s Tune,” St. Louis Post-Dipatch, 22 Aug. 1992, 1A; Scott Charton, “Republican President of Education Board Praises Democrat Carnahan,” Associated Press Political Service, 18 Jan. 1996; Randy Buseman, George Klenovich, and Rusty Goode, “Honoring Achievement: The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards,” Business Record (Des Moines, IA), 27 June 2005, 14.

51. Corn and Moldea, “Did Ashcroft Take the Low Road on the Highroad?”

52. David Johnston and Neil A. Lewis, “Religious Right Made Big Push to Put Ashcroft in Justice Dept.,” New York Times, 7 Jan. 2001, 16.

53. Kathy O. Buckstaff, “Branson Residents Oppose Gambling,” Springfield News-Leader 10 Sept. 1994, 4A; Pete Herschend quoted in Robert Siegel, Noah Adams, and Dan Collison, “Boats in Moats,” All Things Considered (radio program), 8 Oct. 1998; Oscar Avila, “Vote for Amendment Raises Gambling Fears in Branson,” Kansas City Star, 12 Nov. 1998, B1; Boyd, interview.

54. “Records Indicate Family Bankrolling Casino Opposition,” Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune, 15 July 2004; Allen Palmeri, “Defeat of Branson Casino Proposal Shows ‘Prayer over Money,’” Baptist Press News, 4 Aug. 2004, 30.

55. Goforth, “New ‘Celebration City’ Adds to Family Fun in Branson.”

56. Henry, “Silver Dollar City Exit Summary”; AOL CityGuide Web site, http://cityguide.aol.com/stlouis/entertainment/search.adp?cat=vt%5f%5fst%5f&page=detailReviews&id=111907188&rskip=20&layer=venues, 5 Aug. 2001 (accessed on 18 July 2005). Silver Dollar City conducts many exit polls to gauge customer satisfaction. In 2002, roughly 30 percent of the people surveyed (92 of 307) mentioned the park’s “safety,” “friendliness,” “cleanliness,” “order,” and “Christian values” as the things they most enjoyed about their experience. (After 2002, the Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation came under new management, and the sharing of different types of customer information with the press, competition, or people engaged in educational pursuits was disallowed.)

57. Payton, Story of Silver Dollar City, 126; TripAdvisor.com Web site, www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g44160-d103201-r2519146-Silver_Dollar_City-Branson_Missouri.html, 8 Sept. 2004 (accessed on 27 July 2005).

58. “Family Fun Feeds Silver Dollar City,”(Oklahoma City) Journal Record, 27 Apr. 2000.

59. TripAdvisor.com Web site, www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g44160-d106415-r644301-Marvel_Cave-Branson_Missouri.html, 23 July 2001 (accessed on 29 July 2005).

CHAPTER 4. JESUS IS “THE GREATEST STAR”

1. Wes Neal, Branson Stars Booklet (Branson, MO: Champions of Excellence Ministries, 1999), n.p. The Branson Stars Booklet can also be located online at www.fountaingateway.com/coe/ministrynews.htm.

2. Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, Branson/Lakes Area 2005 Fact Sheet.

3. McKinney, “Like Family,” 28–29, 36.

4. Malone, Country Music, U.S.A., 131; McKinney, “Like Family,” 32. On the life and work of Albert Brumley, see Hively, I’ll Fly Away (The Story of Albert E. Brumley), and Cusic, Sound of Light.

5. Robbins, “A’ Lyin’ to Them Tourists,” 61, 70; Terry, “Show That Put a Town on the Map,” 11. The Assemblies of God established its headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, in 1918 when it purchased a former grocery and meat market at Pacific and Lyon streets. Today, the denomination has become the largest Pentecostal group in the world. As of 1999, the Assemblies of God claimed 2.5 million members in the United States and 32 million adherents worldwide. On the history of Pentecostalism in the Ozarks, see Gohr, “Snapshots of the Pentecostal Movement.”

6. Mark Marymount, “Still Fresh at 40,” Springfield News-Leader, 25 June 1995, 6B; Pryor, “Then Came Branson,” 28; Lancaster and McGill, “Branson,” 37–38. The history of the Presley Family, like much of the telling of Branson’s past, is wrapped in folksy, familial narratives that appeal to the city’s nuclear-family tourist cohort. According to Lloyd Presley’s daughter-in-law, the family patriarch traded his loyal hound dog to his brother for a well-worn guitar and, through this sacrifice, set out on a musical course that would become his “life long passion.” Presley, interview.

7. Baldknobbers Jamboree Show press packet, 2002, in the author’s collection; Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 113–114; Klopfer, How Branson Got Started, 34.

8. Lancaster and McGill, “Branson,” 38; Presley, interview; Vorhaben, interview; Linebaugh, interview; Howard, “America’s Hometown,” 84.

9. Baldknobbers Hillbilly Jamboree promotional brochure, ca. 1969, in the author’s collection.

10. “Over 25 Years of Music History,” Southwest Missourian (Kimberling City, MO), 20 Feb. 1986, 18, 24; Lancaster and McGill, “Branson,” 39; “Biography,” Randy Plummer Web site; Green, “Proud as Plumb Pudding,” 10; Randy Plummer, “An Ozark Prayer,” Plum Puddin’ Productions, 2000; Klopfer, How Branson Got Started, 35. Randy Plummer’s Web site includes many items and elements that demonstrate a link between Branson-area musical entertainment and conservative, evangelical Christianity. For instance, it provides links to the Web site of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, an organization that regards peace in Israel as a precursor to the fulfillment of Christian apocalyptic thinking, and that of the Presidential Prayer Team, a group with civil religious intentions which encourages nationwide prayer for the president. These links are accompanied by a daily Bible verse, advertisements for various Branson ministries, and other “inspirational” materials.

11. Fredrick, “Little Helping Hand”; Trent, interview. Urban Cowboy’s effect on Branson is still evidenced by the presence of Mickey Gilley, a cousin of Jimmy Swaggart’s, in Branson. Gilley’s Texas honky-tonk inspired the film. His mother wanted him to become a gospel performer and a minister, but Gilley instead found success with popular country music. In 1990 he opened a 996-seat theater in Branson which still continues to draw sizable crowds. See Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 131–132.

12. Tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection; Karla Price, “Branson Fashion Mixes Glitz, Understatement,” Springfield News-Leader, 23 May 1993, 1F. According to journalist Karla Price, essential elements of the “Branson style” include the color mauve or any shade of purple in a theater’s decor, rhinestones, custom-made cowboy boots, shoulder-length drop earrings, and big hair. It is interesting how this style mimics what may be termed “televangelical chic”—the fashion adopted by wives of prominent televangelists such as Tammy Faye Bakker or Jan Crouch which also has its roots in the 1980s. This comparison seems more cogent when one considers the large number of contemporary Branson performers who have fused Ozark entertainment with the promotion of evangelical or charismatic Protestantism. See Ron Sylvester and Karla Price, “What’s Branson Style? Country Music, City Chic and Lots of Sequins,” Springfield News-Leader, 23 May 1993, 5F.

13. Wolff, Country Music, 301; Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 139; Roy Clark quoted in Ellison, Country Music Culture, 114; Cook, Welcome to Branson, 162; Lancaster and McGill, “Branson,” 41. Clark’s presence in the Ozarks further illustrates an intriguing yet contested connection between Branson and Las Vegas, as he was the first country music artist inducted into the Las Vegas Entertainers Hall of Fame (as a charter member). See Cook, Welcome to Branson, 164. Furthermore, as recounted by Leena Hughes—who now owns the building that housed Roy Clark’s Celebrity Theater—during the mid-1980s the site included a bar in its mezzanine which functioned as an after-hours dance hall. Testifying to a move within the city’s entertainment industry toward a more socially conservative, temperance-oriented vantage, a de facto ban on alcohol is now in place at all Branson shows. See Hughes, interview.

14. Ron Sylvester, “Room for Everyone,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 Oct. 1989; “The Tourism Boom,” Springfield-News Leader, 4 Apr. 1992, 6F; Ron Sylvester and Sara B. Hansen, “Field of Dreams: Branson Built It and They Came,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 Apr. 1990, 1A. A count of citywide yearly visitors has been kept only since 1986. That year, the Ozark Marketing Council reported 3.1 million tourists. See Carney, “Branson,” 26.

15. Lancaster and McGill, “Branson,” 45–46; Bland, “Country Music’s New Mecca,” 64; Karla Price, “Branson Applauds ‘60 Minutes’ Coverage,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 Dec. 1991, 1A; Martha Hoy, “‘60 Minutes’ Gives Tourism Boost,” Branson Beacon, 11 Dec. 1991, 3; Traci Bauer, “Media Helps Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 21 May 1992, 6B.

16. Don Zimmerman, “Country’s Mecca in Missouri,” USA Today, 24 June 1994, 1D; Kathy Buckstaff, “Despite Pains, Growth Moves Ahead,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 Feb. 1995, 8A; “First There Was Nashville . . . Then Came Branson,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 4 July 1993, N4.

17. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson Sees Decline in Tourism,” Springfield News-Leader, 21 Feb. 2001, 6A; “Magazine Says City No. 1 for Families,” Springfield News-Leader, 30 July 1999, 3B; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Poll Ranks Branson Top Holiday Destination,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 Dec. 1997, 3B; Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 24; Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, Branson/Lakes Area 2004 Fact Sheet.

18. Michael Ediger, e-mail correspondence with the author, 8 June 2003.

19. Malone, Country Music, U.S.A., 11; Bruce, And They All Sang Hallelujah, 123, 136.

20. Williams, America’s Religions, 233.

21. Malone, Country Music, U.S.A., 12–13; Smith and Rogers, “Political Culture and the Rhetoric of Country Music,” 185–198; Don Williams, “I Believe In You,” MCA, 41303, 1980; Tom T. Hall, “Me and Jesus,” Mercury, 73278, 1972. On the history of southern gospel music, see Goff, Close Harmony. The vitality of gospel music in Branson is safeguarded by the Branson Gospel Music Association (BGMA). Founded in 1998, the association sponsors a monthly “Jammin’ for Jesus” concert series and an annual all-night session that, on average, attracts 2,000–3,000 people. Although these are primarily southern gospel events, they also feature artists who perform Christian bluegrass, country, and even hip-hop. Intimating the intricate fusion of sacred and secular within Branson musical entertainment, Phyllis Rotrock, director of the BGMA, stated that even though individuals provide “testimony” at her events, they are not a “worship service.” However, whereas the jams used to be free, $5 per head is now charged because the BGMA “is a ministry.” See Rotrock, interview.

22. Braschler, interview; Walters, interview.

23. Mark Marymount, “Braschlers Put Traditional First,” Springfield News-Leader, 8–10 Sept. 2000, 18E; Worden, “Get Ready for a Great Feeling at the Braschler Music Show”; “Church Group Feedback,” 12. Like the Braschler Quartet, Carol Wimmer advocates ministry through the arts. She is the author of Christian-themed musicals, plays, and scripture memory songs for children published by Sheep School Press.

24. Howard, “America’s Hometown,” 95; Lancaster and McGill, “Branson,” 45. On the career of Bill Gaither, see Gaither and Jenkins, Homecoming.

25. Carlin, Big Book of Country Music, 153–154; Fairchild, interview; Mark Marymount, “Fairchild Happy in New Place,” Springfield News-Leader, 16–18 July 1999, 17E. Numerous other performers who have fused country and gospel have achieved a degree of success in Branson. For instance, Cristy Lane, best known for her hit “One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus,” came to town in 1989 and operated her own theater until the mid-1990s. Her show consisted of country standards such as “I Fall to Pieces” and contemporary gospel melodies.

26. “Branson Singing Star Guided by Psalm 37:4,” 16.

27. Tipton, “Cancer Doesn’t Impair Don Gabriel’s Vision,” 14.

28. “Church Getaway Feedback,” 8.

29. Sara B. Hansen, “Theater Is Gatlin ‘Miracle,’” Springfield News-Leader, 5 Oct. 1991, 6B.

30. Francaviglia, “Branson, Missouri,” 65–66; Carlin, Big Book of Country Music, 195–196; “Arts and Leisure,” New York Times, 21 Aug. 1994, 28.

31. Ron Sylvester, “Willie Soon to Shine with Branson Stars,” Springfield News-Leader, 16 Sept. 1991, 1A; Sara B. Hansen, “Nelson Anticipates Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 Oct. 1991, 1A; Ron Sylvester, “Nelson on the Road Too Much for Ticket Holders,” Springfield News-Leader, 1 Dec. 1992, 1A. Commenting on both Haggard’s and Nelson’s unwillingness to “Bransonize” their shows, Cindy Merry, a consultant for ten local productions, stated, “Their opinions of why they couldn’t make it are a lot different than someone like me. They couldn’t make it because they thought that if they put their name on a marquee that’s all it would take to sell tickets. The truth of it is that the visitor to Branson is very sophisticated when it comes to the type of entertainment they want. They won’t take somebody on stage not working for them.” See Merry, interview.

32. Ellison, Country Music Culture, 112; Patty Cantrell and Kathy Oechsle, “Cash Country Creditors Reap Rewards,” Springfield News-Leader, 6 May 1994, 6B, 8B; Ron Sylvester, “‘Man in Black’ Cashes Out of Branson Shows,” Springfield News-Leader, 22 Nov. 1994, 1A. Cash is not the only renowned country artist to abandon Branson because of its older, evangelical, and conservative patrons. In 1992, Kenny Rogers partnered with Silver Dollar City to develop the White Water Landing theme park (featuring a thousand-seat showboat) and a massive shopping center on Branson’s Strip. Rogers also performed occasionally beginning in 1992. In 1995, however, he ended his partnership with Silver Dollar City and left the Ozarks to, in his words, pursue a “younger and hipper” audience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On the other hand, born-again country musician Glen Campbell has had long-lived success in Branson. See Kathy Oechsle, “Rogers to be Partner,” Springfield News-Leader, 1 May 1992, 1A; Mark Marymount, “Rogers Folds Branson Hand, Ends Partnership,” Springfield News-Leader, 21 Dec. 1995, 1A, 13A.

33. Pryor, “Then Came Branson,” 28. The Tillis quotation concerning his decision to move to Branson appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal, 24 July 1992, D1. In the fall of 2002, the Mel Tillis Theater in Branson was purchased by David Green, owner of the Hobby Lobby stores. Tri-Lakes Cathedral, an Assemblies of God church, now leases the building. Commenting on this transition, Tillis stated, “I’ve been thinking about it and praying about it for about the last year or so. . . . When I leave here in January [2003], I will know my theater is in good hands. It’s going to be in the hands of God, and it can’t get no better than that.” See “Mel Tillis Theater Becomes Church,” 8.

34. Cusic, Sound of Light, 181–182.

35. Gary Indiana, “Town of the Living Dead,” Village Voice, 21 Sept. 1993, 35; Bill Duryea, “Come to the Boom Town,” St. Petersburg Times, 31 July 1994, 2F; Laskas, “Branson in My Rearview Mirror,” 170; Frommer, Arthur Frommer’s Branson, 188; Cal Thomas, “Branson Remains the Town That Slime Forgot,” Springfield News-Leader, 22 June 1995, 6A.

36. Queenan, Red Lobster, 166–167, 173; Scribner, interview.

37. Walker, “Down toward Arkansas,” 111; Cook, Welcome to Branson, 170.

38. Tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection; Cook, Welcome to Branson, 170.

39. “Perfect American Town,” 26; Tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection. On some occasions, a performer’s urban inclinations have led to his or her own discomfort in Branson as well as that of audiences. For instance, in 1994 the edgy New York comedian David Brenner abruptly canceled a three-month run at Branson’s Ozark Theatre after only a dozen performances. During this period, the largest crowd Brenner had drawn was 404 people in a venue that seated 1,300. Although theater owner Kent Emmons attributed this failure to “stretching the parameters of Branson entertainment,” he also cited Brenner’s uneasiness with the Ozarks: “He’s more city. He’s a city guy. He got to the point where he thought this wasn’t the place for him. . . . I think the people were too slow for him.” A central point of contention for the comedian was the refusal of a Branson supermarket to extend him a credit account—a typically easy process in a small town (especially for a multimillionaire) but one not afforded this New York native in the symbolic hub of America’s heartland. See Karla Price, “Brenner Views Branson from Rearview Mirror,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 June 1994, 1A, 4A.

40. Greaux, “Architecture,” 28; Cook, Welcome to Branson, 215. Other local purveyors of poporiented nostalgia not discussed in this chapter include Bobby Vinton, who opened his Blue Velvet Theater in 1993, and John Davidson, who debuted at the Jim Stafford Theatre in 1991.

41. Ron Sylvester, “Williams Slams Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 Jan. 1992, 1A, 8A; Cook, Welcome to Branson, 216. During a 1992 performance that included a guest appearance by composer Henry Mancini, Williams demonstrated his ongoing “Bransonization.” At one moment in the act, Mancini praised Williams for “working his ass off” to get the theater ready. Williams quickly responded, “We don’t use words like that in Branson,” and the crowd responded with a rousing ovation. See Pryor, “Then Came Branson,” 28.

42. Cook, Welcome to Branson, 220; Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 110; “Forum Index”; Wolfe, interview. Another anecdote related by Wolfe further illustrates the continued tenuous relationship that Williams has with Branson’s entertainment ideology. In preparation for one show, Andy was supposed to come out in a cowboy hat, although as a flamboyant urbanite in his mid-seventies he does not look much like a cowboy. Glen Campbell, who has performed with Williams in recent years, was to say to him, “Who are you supposed to be?” Andy was to reply, “I’m a cowboy.” Glen was then to declare, “You look more like the gay caballero.” It was jokingly suggested in this practice that Andy should subsequently respond, “Fuck you.” Mistakenly, this retort was typed into the teleprompter by the stage manager. When this moment in the act arose at that evening’s show, Campbell read the teleprompter and began to laugh. Andy described to the crowd what had occurred by stating that “F You” was typed on the screen. Although he avoided actually speaking a vulgar word, the theater received a number of letters of complaint saying that Andy had said “fuck” in the performance, thus demonstrating that even alluding to profanity is beyond the realm of acceptability for many Branson tourists.

43. Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 146–147; Robert Keyes, “Newton Sues Theater Owners,” Springfield News-Leader, 17 Feb. 1994, 2A, 5A; Kathy Oechsle, “Newton Fired by Theater Owners,” Springfield News-Leader, 12 Apr. 1994, 1A; Dean Curtis, “Creditors Nipping at Newton’s Heels,” Springfield News-Leader, 23 June 1994, 1A, 5A.

44. Ron Sylvester, “Newton’s Show Does a U-Turn Back to Branson,” Springfield-News Leader, 23 Nov. 1994, 1A; Traci Shurley, “Orlando Sues Newton over Split,” Springfield News-Leader, 29 Apr. 1999, 1A; “Newton Files Suit against Orlando,” Springfield News-Leader, 22 June 1999, 1A; Ron Davis, “Seat 210, Front Row, Center,” Springfield News-Leader, 18 July 1993, 10G; Duryea, “Come to the Boom Town,” 3F. A seemingly benign yet, in the Ozark context, controversial example of Newton’s “too Vegas for Branson” style can be seen in one of his patented jokes. An assistant asks, “How long have you been wearing that girdle?” and gets the reply, “Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment.” Though on the surface innocent, even this allusion to bodies and light-hearted take on adultery proved too contentious for many of Branson’s faithful.

45. Sylvester and Hampton, Branson, 61, 63; Laskas, “Branson in My Rearview Mirror,” 171–172.

46. Klise and Payton, Insiders’ Guide, 134; Esther 2:10.

47. Don Mahnken, “Extended Tourist Season Works,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 27 Dec. 1988, 4B; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson’s Traditional Celebration of Christmas Stays True to Holiday’s Spiritual Beginnings,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 Dec. 2003, 1A; Schmidt, Consumer Rites, 190.

48. Vecchio, interview.

49. “Tony’s Testimony,” 22.

50. Ron Sylvester, “‘Liberace of Gospel Set’ to Ply Trade in Branson at Legends,” Springfield News-Leader, 5 Mar. 1992, 1B; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Long Years of Effort Put Dino at Palace,” Springfield News-Leader, 5 Nov. 1996, 7A.

51. Freihofer, “Dino,” 10.

52. Ibid., 11; “Testimonies”; Freihofer and Tipton, “Our Talks with Dino, Cheryl, and Gary,” 10.

53. Freihofer, “Review,” 20.

54. Layher, interview.

55. Lennon, interview.

56. Rodnitzky, “Back to Branson,” 98; Drew Jubera, “The Year That Changed America,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 27 Dec. 2001, A1; Dan Lennon, e-mail correspondence with the author, 20 July 1999.

57. Bellah, Beyond Belief, 175; Bellah, Broken Covenant, 84.

58. Freihofer, interview.

59. Presley, interview.

60. Vecchio, interview; Jubera, “Year That Changed America,” A1. Iterating the sense of American exceptionalism promoted in Branson and melding it with an endorsement of antimodern nostalgia, Branson historian Jessica Howard stated, “People who think the U.S. is going down the toilet go to Branson. Branson represents the kind of America everyone fought the wars for.” See “In the World of Newt and Rush, Branson Is Hip,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 Feb. 1995, 8A.

61. “Branson Honors Those Who Served,” Springfield News-Leader, 27 May 2001, 7B; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson Rolling Out Red Carpet for All Veterans,” Springfield News-Leader, 4 Nov. 2001, 1A. Tony Orlando’s multidecade popularity in Branson is a product of his esteem among veterans—a relationship that dates from his 1973 hit “Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the Ole Oak Tree.” This success might also be contingent on his often religiously phrased Branson boosterism. As he has stated about the city, “It’s a miracle. . . . If the United States had a heart and it were a living, breathing animal, Branson would be right where the heart is.” See Laskas, “Branson in My Rearview Mirror,” 171.

62. Branson Veterans Task Force (Web site); Buckstaff, “Branson Rolling Out Red Carpet for All Veterans,” 4A.

63. Duede, “Vietnam Veteran Visits Branson,” 48. Nationalism is further institutionalized and sanctified in Branson at the National Center for Patriotic Studies (an arm of the Branson Veterans Task Force), located in the Mansion America theater. The mission of the center is to “promote an understanding of and a commitment to our American patriotic value system.” This is accomplished through endeavors such as the creation of a variety of “experiential programs” that combine “our country’s heritage with the entertainment industry in Branson” and the development of Branson as an “educational tourism market” by bringing models of patriotic monuments from across the country to town. In doing so, the center hopes to “stimulate the study and practice of patriotism as a function of citizenship.” Harking back to a notion of education that elides dialogue about the justifiable nature of war while consecrating the acts of the American military, Debbie Ikerd (executive director of the Branson Veterans Task Force) stated: “Our goal is not only to honor those who have served, but also to educate our youth regarding the sacrifices veterans have made to preserve our freedom.” See Debbie Ikerd, “Branson Salutes Our Veterans,” Kansas City Star, 10 Feb. 1999, F4.

64. Neal, Branson Stars Booklet, n.p.

65. Jubera, “Year That Changed America,” A1.

66. Pfister, Insiders’ Guide to Branson and the Ozark Mountains, 128–129; Mark Marymont, “Smirnoff Uses Culture Shock for Patriotic Fun,” Springfield News-Leader, 17–19 Sept. 1999, 22E; Ron Sylvester, “Comedic Smirnoff Coming to Town,” Springfield News-Leader, 14 May 1993, 1B; Freihofer, “Comedy on a Mission,” 37. “Yakov Smirnoff Show: Traveler Reviews.”

67. Freihofer, “Celebrate America”; tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection.

68. American Highrise (Web site); John Rogers, “Entertainer’s ‘Doodle’ Catches Postal Service’s Eye,” Springfield News-Leader, 25 Oct. 1997, 1B.

69. Jorstad, Holding Fast/Pressing On, 113.

70. Tom Uhlenbrock, “Branson Cheers President’s Tune,” St. Louis Post-Dipatch, 22 Aug. 1992, 1A; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Reed Exhorts Crowd to Vote,” Springfield News-Leader, 31 Aug. 1996, 1A; Dawn Peterson, “U.S. Needs God, Speaker Says,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 Apr. 1998, 1A; Traci Shurley, “Pat Robertson Fans Turn Out for Taping,” Springfield News- Leader, 13 June 1998, 10A; Jennifer Barnett, “Singing Senators Cut Loose,” Springfield News-Leader, 22 Sept. 1997, 1B.

71. Robert Schmuhl quoted in Lois Romano, “Branson, Mo., Looks beyond RVs and Buffets,” Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2005, A3.

72. Laskas, “Branson in My Rearview Mirror,” 175; tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection.

73. Diane Majeske, “Mister Marriage,” Springfield News-Leader, 20 Feb. 2002, 4G.

74. Ibid., 1G; Smalley and Smalley, “Eight Great Reasons to Date”; Smalley, “Women Are from the Classroom.”

75. Griffith, God’s Daughters, 22, 204; Smalley, “Persistence.”

76. “Our Guiding Principles”; Freihofer, “Youth Getaways,” 18.

77. Wiebe, interview. “Raising America,” a song-and-dance revue performed by the American Kids at Branson’s Majestic Theater, is an example of a local entertainment act that reflects the concerns of Kanakuk Kamps. The American Kids was founded by a former Oklahoma high school principal, Dr. Dale Smith, in the late 1970s. It is now a national organization that helps young people develop character in a Christian context by using the performing arts as a vehicle. Values stressed include courage, commitment, dedication to family and country, loyalty, and the fullest use of one’s God-given talents. Currently, more than a thousand children participate in the program and stage their acts in New York, Las Vegas, Nashville, Hollywood, Orlando, and Branson. See Tipton, “American Kids Are Coming.”

78. Wiebe, interview.

79. Ibid.

80. Parker, “Engendering Identity(s) in a Rural Arkansas Ozark Community,” 148, 153, 148. In Parker’s research, it was older women (Laverne was at the time sixty-six, and Rhonda was fifty-two) who cited biblical injunctions for female deference to male authority. However, as seniors are one of Branson’s primary tourist cohorts, it might stand to reason that the propagation of such sentiments and their representation in local entertainment would function to attract this niche market.

81. Kathryn Buckstaff, “A Real Christmas Story,” All Roads Lead to Branson: Branson’s Entertainment Quarterly, Holiday 2001 edition; Freihofer, “Hughes Brothers,” 51.

82. E-mail correspondence with the author, 25 July 2000. On a similar note, when Pat Boone’s “Will Rogers Follies” came to Branson in the mid-1990s, citizens and tourists took umbrage at its scantily clad young women. The tourism industry’s uncodified “ethical policing” quickly took charge, and soon thereafter leotards and body stockings were featured under the revealing costumes. See Rosenberg and Silverman, Ozarks Traveler, 168. Even with these changes in attire, some visitors still felt that the Follies were outside the Ozark fold. As tourist Peg Adams claimed, because the show is too much like Broadway, “they’re not Branson.” See Duryea, “Come to the Boom Town,” 3F.

83. Mark Marymount, “Jennifer Charms Audiences,” Springfield News-Leader 25–27 June 1999, 19E; Murray, “Jennifer Says Goodbye,” 14, 32; Cox, “Branson’s Very Own Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Dolly Parton, a better-known, busty starlet, also contributes to Branson entertainment as the co-owner of the Dixie Stampede (a dinner theater that light-heartedly reenacts the Civil War). However, no tourist objections to this buxom singer’s presence in town have been noted. One might surmise that this lack of protest is because Parton hails from rural Tennessee, and her breasts can therefore be viewed as the vehicles whereby a country girl made good in show business.

84. Ron Sylvester, “Not Just Dolls,” Springfield News-Leader, 12 Nov. 1995, 1G; Arline Chandler, “Star Light, Star Bright,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 24 Oct. 1999, 4H.

85. Sara H. Bennett, “Pageant Fever,” Springfield News-Leader, 31 Jan. 1999, 1G, 7G; Lauren Squires, “Pageant Emcee Marred Branson Image,” Springfield News-Leader, 31 Jan. 1999, 8A; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson Wants Toned Down Pageant,” Springfield News-Leader, 4 Nov. 1999, 3B. Despite the numerous debacles surrounding Branson’s Miss USA Pageant, Dia Webb (Miss Oklahoma), who finished in the top ten, was able to find some Christian-based redemption. The night before the event commenced, Webb presented herself to the producers of Branson’s The Promise, a musical based on the life of Jesus. After an audition, she was given a part in the show. See “Role in the Promise No Accident for Reigning Miss Oklahoma,” 25–26.

86. Bland, “Country Music’s New Mecca,” 64; tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection.

CHAPTER 5. “NEAR HEAVEN”

1. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 30, 101, 144, 158.

2. Ibid., 103, 145, 156, 302.

3. Water & Fire: A Story of the Ozarks, prod. Michael Murphy, Kansas City Public Television (KCPT), 2000, videocassette.

4. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 302.

5. Chidester, “Poetics and Politics of Sacred Space”; David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal, intro. to Chidester and Linenthal, American Sacred Space, 18. As early as the late 1970s, human geographers interested in social and cultural contexts began critiquing the lack of contextual focus on the part of humanistic geography. On initial considerations of this issue, see Cosgrove, “Place, Landscape and the Dialectics of Cultural Geography,” and Ley, “Social Geography and Social Action.”

6. Smith, Map Is Not the Territory, 88–103. The myth-and-symbol approach to sacred space is primarily the legacy of Mircea Eliade. In his The Sacred and the Profane (1959) and elsewhere, faith was marked as an independent variable, and the realms of the psychological, social, and economic were to be understood as dependent on it. As a corollary, sacred places were grounded in a unique character and possessed a special nature that could not be conferred on them by mere human action. In such locales, the major vertical divisions of the world intersected via a “symbol of ascent,” thereby making them worldly centers filled with the possibility of divine encounters. See Eliade, Sacred and the Profane.

7. Birdsong, “Near Heaven,” 48.

8. Sauer, Geography of the Ozark Highland of Missouri, viii–ix. Interestingly and inaccurately in light of Branson’s tourism history, Sauer predicted that the Ozarks would never develop into a banner vacation area. Although admitting that Branson was one of a number of “much visited summer resorts” near Lake Taneycomo, he wrote that such places were unknown to people “outside of the cities lying adjacent to the Ozarks” and that tourist development was untenable because “a vacation in the Ozarks is attended by few of the ordinary amenities of city life and by none of the social allurements with which the established resorts are provided abundantly.” As previous chapters have demonstrated, many people came to Branson precisely because it lacked such modern devices, and many more arrived owing to the efforts of Lizzie McDaniel, the Lynch sisters, the Trimbles, and others who effectively merged visions of rustic vacationing with modern conveniences. See ibid., 231–232.

9. Sauer, “Economic Problem of the Ozark Highland.”

10. Ferrell, “Ozarks,” 27.

11. “Sammy Lane Boat Line” brochure, 13–14; White River Leader, 28 Aug. 1914; Lake Taneycomo Chamber of Commerce brochure, 1926, quoted in Myers-Phinney, “Arcadia in the Ozarks,” 6. “Land of a Million Smiles” was an early slogan utilized by the Ozarks Playground Association (OPA). Headquartered in Joplin, Missouri, the OPA began in 1919 as a cooperative effort of businesses to promote tourism in the region.

12. Kansas City Southern Railway, Kansas City Southern Ozarks, quoted in Sellars, “Early Promotion and Development of Missouri’s Natural Resources,” 134.

13. Miller, “Ozarks, Synonym for Surprises,” 12; “Mecca of All Tourists and Summer Visitors,” 11.

14. E. A. Strout Realty Agency Inc. brochure, ca. 1949, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri–Rolla.

15. McNeil, “‘By the Ozark Trail,’” 25.

16. Rafferty, “Ozarks Forest”; Morrow, “St. Louis Game Park,” 11.

17. Rafferty, “Ozarks Forest,” 117; Rossiter, “Burning the Ozarks,” 33–34; Gusewelle, “‘Continuity of Place and Blood,’” 101. Reports concerning the abundance of wildlife in southwestern Missouri during the early nineteenth century often seem of mythical proportion. For instance, during his three-month tour of the area in 1818–1819, geologist and explorer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft reported a voluminous number of deer, turkeys, wolves, bears, and fowl. On Christmas Day, 1818, on Beaver Creek, near modern-day Branson, his group of hunters killed fourteen turkeys in a matter of two hours. Rafferty, Rude Pursuits and Rugged Peaks, 73.

18. Rossiter, “Burning the Ozarks,” 33–34; Morrow, “St. Louis Game Park.”

19. Rafferty, Ozarks, 209–210; Van Buskirk, “Wild White River,” 58.

20. Rafferty, Ozarks, 210–211; Burton, “Rockaway Beach”; Love, “Making Niagras in the Ozarks,” 140. The White River Boosters’ League was incorporated in 1919 primarily as a promotional organization for tourism in Branson, Hollister, Rockaway Beach, and Forsythe, Missouri.

21. Saults, “Fifty Years of Missouri Conservation,” 24; Keefe, First 50 Years, 6–8.

22. Keefe, First 50 Years, 21, 334, 337.

23. Love, “World of Townsend Godsey”; Godsey, Ozarks Mountain Folk, 128.

24. Keefe, First 50 Years, 19; Morrow, “St. Louis Game Park,” 15.

25. Simpich, “Land of a Million Smiles.”

26. Comstock, “Ozark Pageant,” 3.

27. Ozark Mountain Lakes and Rivers, Inc., “White River Lakes of the Ozarks” brochure, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri–Rolla.

28. Fred DeArmont, “Progress at Table Rock”; Hensley, “In the Shadow of Table Rock Dam.” Prior to the construction of Table Rock Dam, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had supervised the building of Norfork and Clearwater lakes on White River tributaries and Bull Shoals Dam on the White River itself.

29. James F. Barrett, “Times They Air a Changin’—Hit’s a Pity, Pity,” Stone County (MO) Gazette, 17 Apr. 2000; Rayburn, “Dam Talk,” 56. Despite his frequently nostalgic writings, Douglas Mahnkey, like many other Ozarkers, sought to strike a balance between progress and preservation of the past. At a twenty-fifth anniversary dinner commemorating the building of Table Rock Dam, he told representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “I hope you don’t build any more dams. You’ve covered up too many good pawpaw patches and fishing holes already.” However, Mahnkey also owned a hotel in Forsyth and therefore profited from the large increase in regional tourism which resulted from the construction of Table Rock. Like most with his vantage, he pictured the Ozarks as a woodsy haven for nature lovers rather than a site for hoards of speedboats and music fans. His experience demonstrates that even the most ardent opponents of modern technological accretions have not necessarily been antimodern. Instead they have promoted a tempered form of progress often incompatible with the boomtown history of Branson. See Chris Bentley, “At Least Progress Hasn’t Completely Covered Everything,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 Feb. 1995, 5A.

30. Rayburn, “Big Year,” 5; Asbell, “Vanishing Hillbilly,” 95; Brown, “Ozark Playgrounds Add New Tourist Attraction,” 63.

31. Rafferty, Ozarks, 211.

32. Hensley, “In the Shadow of Table Rock Dam,” 269–271.

33. Simpson, “Otto Ernest Rayburn,” 161; Rayburn, “Rayburn’s Roadside Chat” (July 1930), 1; Rayburn, Forty Years in the Ozarks, 6, 13. Further describing how The Shepherd of the Hills made him feel a part of the regional landscape, Rayburn wrote, “It turned the trick. From that day forward I was a hillbilly of the first water. I couldn’t imagine how I had managed to grow to manhood without knowing about the Ozarks.” See Rayburn, “Hideway Lodge,” 7.

34. Rayburn, “Quest for Arcadia,” 5; Rayburn, Forty Years in the Ozarks, 32; Rayburn, “Arcadian Echoes” (1950), 61; Rayburn, “Shepherd of the Hills Country,” 11; Kimball, “White River Lure,” 21. Defining the concept of “Arcadia,” Rayburn stated, “The word, Arcadian, means ideally rural. Historically, Arcadia was the province of ancient Greece. It was a land of great scenic beauty where men found contentment in rural simplicity. Today, any contented rural folk may be called Arcadians.” See Otto Ernest Rayburn, Arcadian Magazine, Mar. 1931, 4.

35. Rayburn, “Rayburn’s Roadside Chat” (Sept. 1929), 3; Rayburn, “Rural Musings” (1949), 3; Miller, “What Rayburn’s Ozark Guide Means to Me,” 47.

36. Rayburn, “Sight Unseen,” 5.

37. Rayburn, “Gone Are the Days,” 6.

38. Rayburn, Forty Years in the Ozarks, 47–48.

39. Rayburn, “Ozarkograms,” 12; Rayburn, “Rural Musings” (1949), 3; Rayburn, “Lay My Burden Down,” 5; Rayburn, “Arcadian Echoes” (1949), 53.

40. “Rayburn’s Roadside Chat” (Mar.–Apr. 1930), 3.

41. Rayburn, “Arcadian Echoes” (vol. 19, 1948), 38; Rayburn, “Pastoral Living,” 55; Rayburn, “Rayburn’s Roadside Chat” (Sept. 1929), 3.

42. Rayburn, “Rayburn’s Roadside Chat” (Sept. 1929), 3; Rayburn, “Rayburn’s Roadside Chat” (Sept. 1930), 1; Rayburn, “Harmony of Nature,” 18.

43. Rayburn, “Rural Musings” (1945), 115; Rayburn, “Progress in the Ozarks,” 3.

44. Rayburn, “Gone Are the Days,” 6–7; Rayburn, “Try the Ozarks,” 5–6.

45. Rayburn, “Lay of the Legend,” E; Rayburn, Forty Years in the Ozarks, 8; Rayburn’s Ozark Folk Encyclopedia was not intended for print but rather consists of 229 “volumes” or loose-leaf binders preserved as part of the Otto Ernest Rayburn Collection at the University of Arkansas. Each contains pamphlets, clippings, photos, maps, and other materials arranged first in relation to 125 counties in Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas and then rearranged thematically under headings such as “Chickens, “Shooting,” and “Zither.”

46. Rayburn, “Arcadian Echoes” (vol. 18, 1948), 97.

47. Ingenthron, Land of Taney, 18–19.

48. “‘Progress’ or ‘Cancer,’” Springfield Leader & Press, 13 Feb. 1973, 7.

49. Branson Area Environmental Task Force, “Executive Summary”; Deborah Barnes and Kathy Oechsle, “Branson and the Environment,” Springfield News-Leader, 5 Sept. 1993, 1A.

50. Fredrick, “Ozark Mountain Country,” 4. Deborah Barnes, “Defending the Land,” Springfield News-Leader, 7 Sept. 1993, 1A, 5A; Jennifer McDonald, “Keeping Lakes Clean a Challenge,” Springfield News-Leader, 22 May 1999, 9A.

51. Chris Bentley, “Branson Discovers 17 ‘Illegal’ Buildings,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Feb. 1994, 1A. In May 1994, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Brewer and Shipley, and other area entertainers performed a concert in Branson which was produced by the Ozark Environmental Awareness Fund. Revenues from the event were donated to area groups that monitor lakes, woods, and wildlife. Kathy Oechsle, “Concert Singers’ Refrain to Be Saving Environment,” Springfield News-Leader, 27 Apr. 1994, 1B.

52. Barnes and Oechsle, “Branson and the Environment,” 9A.

53. Silver Dollar City, Inc., “A Company Committed to Protecting and Nurturing the Environment” press release, 2000, in author’s collection; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson Residents Urge Board to Curb Tour Bus Pollution,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Oct. 1995, 5B; Tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in author’s collection.

54. Payton, Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks, 9, 72. According to Claudia Vecchio, former vice president of communications for the Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, “Neon and Nature” was adopted as a promotional slogan to cater to the desires of baby boomer vacationers. Claiming that this demographic tires of Branson’s musical entertainment more easily than does the World War II generation, which spawned the city’s early 1990s boom, she stated they must be provided a “total experience”—one that unites variety shows with hiking, biking, and other forms of “adventure travel.” As part of this dual-edged approach, Vecchio’s organization partnered with the city of Branson in 1998 to create the Environmental Excellence Challenge. This initiative focuses on recycling, water preservation, and the beautification of area properties by means of environmental and legislative committees. See Vecchio, interview.

55. LaRoe, “Ozarks Harmony.”

56. Lane Beauchamp, “Branson’s Success Scars Land and Lives,” Kansas City Star, 7 Mar. 1993; A1, A14; Tony Horwitz, “Getting Nowhere: Boomtowns Lure Poor with Plenty of Work—but Not Much Else,” Wall Street Journal, 16 June 1994, A1.

57. Boyd, interview; Beauchamp, “Branson’s Success Scars Land and Lives,” A1, A14; Lane Beauchamp, “Tourist Season Begins with Help for the Homeless,” Kansas City Star, 7 Mar. 1993, A14.

58. Chris Bentley, “Proposed Site North of Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Sept. 1994, 1A; Kathy O. Buckstaff, “‘The Right Price Always Buys the Property,’ Five-Star’s Owner Says,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Sept. 1994, 1A. Creative Learning Products was founded in 1994 and for a decade focused its production on crayons, children’s placemats, videos, and other early-learning materials. However, in June 1994, the company restructured its operations to focus on entertainment and gambling—a move that, according to founder Peter Jegou, was meant to “take its successes in entertaining children to the next level.” Creative Learning first invested in Branson when it bought the Five-Star Theatre in the spring of 1994 to house an original musical play based on the life of Roy Rogers. See “Company Cruises from Crayons to Casinos,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Sept. 1994, 4A.

59. Bentley, “Proposed Site North of Branson”; Traci Bauer, “Controversy Coming Neighbors Agree,” Springfield-News Leader, 10 Sept. 1994, 1A. Contrary to Tommy Thompson’s assessment, the naming of Christian County had nothing to do with a particular religious vantage. In March 1859, this political unit was carved from portions of Greene, Taney, and Webster counties. Mrs. Neaves, a landowner hesitant to lose her citizenship in Greene County, agreed to do so if the new area was named for her former residence, Christian County, Kentucky. See Christian County Centennial, Inc., Christian County.

60. “Strong Views for, against Gambling,” Springfield News-Leader 13 Sept. 1994, 4A; “Ozarkers Make Voices Heard on Casino Issue,” Springfield News-Leader 27 Oct. 1994, 5A; Linda Purvis, e-mail correspondence with the author, 17 Apr. 1997; Fred Browning, e-mail correspondence with the author, 7 Mar. 1997. Although the vast majority of those who wrote to the Springfield News-Leader opposed gambling on moral and religious grounds (sixty-two of seventy-nine through late October 1994), a few dissenting voices appeared. For instance, Peggy Pollard saw Native American casinos as a way to atone for past indiscretions throughout American history when she wrote, “I believe that if the Indians want to open a bingo parlor or gambling casino, they should be allowed to do so. We’ve done a lot of things to them—we’ve taken their land and we didn’t just take the bad land, we took the good land, and I think they should be allowed to do their gambling or play their bingo.” Interestingly, even without the influence of gambling some people suggested that crime was becoming a serious problem in Branson during the mid-1990s. In 1996, a commentator on CBS’s Face the Nation stated that the city’s overall crime rate had risen 800 percent from the previous year. See “Mayor Blasts CBS Report on Branson Crime Statistics,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 Dec. 1996, 1B.

61. Ron Sylvester, “Performers Voice Their Opposition to Gambling,” Springfield News-Leader 10 Sept. 1994, 4A; Kathy O. Buckstaff, “Branson Groups Unite against Gambling,” Springfield News-Leader, 24 Sept. 1994, 1A.

62. Kathy O. Buckstaff, “Branson Residents Oppose Gambling,” Springfield News-Leader 10 Sept. 1994, 4A; Pete Herschend quoted in Robert Siegel, Noah Adams, and Dan Collison, “Boats in Moats,” All Things Considered (radio program), 8 Oct. 1998; Chris Bentley, “Gambling, Carnahan Don’t Mix,” Springfield News-Leader, 11 Sept. 1994, 1A. Refuting contentions offered by Herschend and other businesspeople, former Chrysler Corporation chairman Lee Iacocca stated in 1994 that Branson-area residents would ultimately be pleased if gambling was allowed. In town for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the entrance to the Branson Hills housing development (in which he had an ownership stake), Iacocca maintained, “The day when the overbuilt theaters in this town start to close, gambling will become an attractive option here. If done right and controlled and the bad elements kept out, gambling will bring families.” See Kathy O. Buckstaff, “Iacocca: Gambling Might Save You,” Springfield News-Leader, 15 Nov. 1994, 6B, 8B.

63. Scribner, interview.

64. Sara B. Hansen, “Proprietor Flees; Exotic Dance Suit Still Not Served,” Springfield News-Leader, 24 July 1990, 1B. In 1994, a Scribner-led coalition also combated local licentious sexuality by preventing the establishment of a Hooters restaurant in Branson. Although he had never been to Hooters, Scribner professed the incompatibility of the establishment with the Branson image when he stated, “You don’t have to get down to wallow with the pigs to know they stink.” See Kathy Oechsle, “Branson Ponders ‘Adult Entertainment Zone,’ Just in Case,” Springfield News-Leader 4 Feb. 1994, 1A; Scribner, interview.

65. Scribner, interview; Stacey Hamby, “Christians Make Difference in Missouri’s Tourist Mecca,” Word & Way, 30 Apr. 1998, 5. As an example of other social ills contested by Branson’s First Baptist Church, Scribner spoke out against a proposition for more lenient liquor laws because it would degrade “the value system that has in fact made Branson what it is.” Alcohol joined the list of regional pariahs during the early 1990s. In March 1995, the chamber of commerce and the board of alderman prevented the sale of alcohol at Branson Jam, the tourism industry’s yearly kickoff. In that same month, city leaders unanimously denied plans to bring a microbrewery to town. See Lane Beauchamp, “Beer or Bingo?” Kansas City Star, 15 Mar. 1995, A1; Kathryn Buckstaff, “More Lenient Liquor Law Proposed,” Springfield News-Leader, 29 May 2001, 1B. Substances of a different kind have also been positioned by local boosters as outside Branson’s virtuous fold. A 2003 television commercial advertised the city as “a place where getting high means a roller coaster ride.”

66. Wells, interview; Gold, interview; “History of Chapel (Formerly Motor Coach) Ministry.”

67. Wells, interview; Gold, interview; Hamby, “Christians Make Difference in Missouri’s Tourist Mecca,” 6.

68. “Stonecroft Ministry,” 14; “Statement of Faith” (Stonecroft Ministries). On the history of Stonecroft Ministries, see Baugh, Story Goes On.

69. Smith, interview.

70. Jeff Hurst, interview; Emma Hurst, interview. Another example of an organization specifically designed to provide religious outreach to tourists in Branson is Warren Hunter’s Sword Ministries. Hunter came to Branson from South Africa because he felt that God was revealing a variety of “signs and wonders” in the Ozarks. See “He Came from South Africa to Impart to You in Branson,” 52.

71. Jeff Hurst, interview; Emma Hurst, interview.

72. Stacey Hamby, “Behind the Curtain,” Word & Way, 30 Apr. 1998, 6; Mark Marymount, “Reunion Brings Familiar Faces to Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 25–27 Feb. 2000, 9E.

73. McPhail, interview.

74. Ibid.

75. Boyd, interview; Scribner, interview; McPhail, interview; Linda Leicht, “Churches in Branson Lose Leaders,” Springfield News-Leader, 6 Oct. 2005, 1A.

76. Scribner, interview; Boyd, interview.

77. Kellogg, interview; Millsap, “Branson Church Will Memorialize Harold Bell Wright,” 6.

78. Bucher, interview.

79. Freihofer, “Dino,” 10; “Few Words from Mike Radford,” 55; Rotrock, interview.

80. Rotrock, interview; Tipton, “Stars Come out for the Hiding Place Ministries,” 16–18. Billye Brim was called to the ministry through a baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1967. From 1971 through 1980 she worked for Kenneth Hagin Ministries in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After retiring from that post, she established her own organization and, in the mid-1990s, began plans for Prayer Mountain. As she recounts on her ministry’s Web site, “For years I have sensed a call for a special place to pray about God’s plans and purposes in these days of the ‘former and latter rain together’ outpouring. . . . Then about eleven years ago I began to sense a yearning toward Branson. I heard of the prophecy Corrie Ten Boom gave concerning what God would do there in the last days. At Brother Kenneth Hagin’s Winter Bible Seminar in Tulsa, during a powerful Holy Ghost controlled meeting, I was out under the power on the floor for a long time. God spoke to me plainly about this call. The place was to be near Branson. He said angels were holding the land. . . . He said there was to be a Prayer Mountain. A place where people could come for individual prayer. . . . But primarily a place where seasoned prayers would lead to Holy Spirit guided prayers concerning the work of God in the last days. . . . And so this is a God touched project. Prayer Mountain in the Ozarks is now a reality.” See Brim, “Vision of Prayer Mountain.”

81. U.S. News & World Report, 19 Dec. 1994, 64; Wojcik, End of the World As We Know It, 4.

82. Levitt, “October 2001 Personal Letter”; “Transmillennial 2006” brochure, in the author’s collection.

83. Although not in attendance at the Roots Conference, I was provided with detailed notes and all handouts from the proceedings by Howard Boyd, pastor of Branson Hills Assembly of God Church.

84. Tourist response, “Branson Is Fun for Everyone!” marketing campaign, fall 2004, in the author’s collection; Bucher, interview; McPhail, interview.

CHAPTER 6. HILLBILLY HEAVEN

1. While conducting fieldwork in Branson, I heard numerous versions of Spurlock’s quotation. The one used here can be found in Pfister, Insiders’ Guide to Branson and the Ozark Mountains, 25.

2. Heavin, “Hillbilly,” 76.

3. Brandon, “Trickster,” 623; Hynes, “Inconclusive Conclusions,” 215.

4. Turner, Ritual Process, 95; Douglas, Purity and Danger, 13.

5. Babcock-Abrahams, “‘Tolerated Margin of Mess,’” 165; Pelton, Trickster in West Africa, 3.

6. Koepping, “Absurdity and the Hidden Truth,” 193.

7. Green, “Hillbilly Music,” 204.

8. Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind, x; Batteau, Invention of Appalachia, 132. On representations of Appalachia by outsiders from the 1860s through the 1980s, see McNeil, Appalachian Images in Folk and Popular Culture.

9. Rafferty, Rude Pursuits and Rugged Peaks, 63; H. L. Mencken, “Famine,” Baltimore Evening Sun, 19 Jan. 1931; Queenan, Red Lobster, 166.

10. McAdoo, “Where the Poor Are Rich,” 13, 83. Early residents of southwestern Missouri did live apart from mainstream society because of the region’s relative inaccessibility and maintained traditional folkways. Taney County was perhaps the most isolated place in the region during the early settlement period and as late as 1920 had the lowest population density of any Ozark county (12.5 people per square mile). In 1920, Stone County was only slightly more populated, with a density of 14.4 people per square mile. However, even at the turn of the twentieth century, this remoteness was not complete. Ridge trails and rudimentary roads existed, as did magazine and newspaper subscriptions that offered contact with life beyond the hills. Inhabitants also kept abreast of national and international developments through communication with crossroads merchants. These information channels were supplemented by neighborhood dances and musical parties that brought people together to share community information and knowledge of world affairs. As historian Edgar D. McKinney once surmised, the level of isolation depended to a great extent “upon the personality and preferences exhibited by individuals” and cannot be reduced to utter geographic seclusion. See Estabrook, “Population of the Ozarks,” 25, and McKinney, “Images, Realities, and Cultural Transformation in the Missouri Ozarks,” 76.

11. Sarah Overstreet, “Some of the Stereotypes May Be Founded in Truth, but Mostly It’s Pure Hollywood Fiction,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Mar. 1985, 1L; Dale Freeman, “What IS a Hillbilly?” Springfield News & Leader, 2 Feb. 1975, 1. Another piece of Ozark wit further illustrates the difficulties of a tourist’s ability to identify “authentic” hillbillies. According to this account, “an old native of the White River Valley, after being queried from time to time by tourists looking for a hillbilly, was once more asked by a New Englander where he might find one. After he was informed that he was talking to a hillbilly and finding that the native looked no different than any one else, he commented: ‘These natives aren’t like they used to be, are they?’ To which the old native replied, ‘No, nor they never were.’” See “Ozark Wit and Humor,” 6.

12. Upton, “Hillbilly,” 23.

13. Quotation from Hibler, Down in Arkansas, 33.

14. Donaldson, “Hillbilly,” 16–17.

15. Randolph and Wilson, Down in the Holler, 252; Roberts, “Don’t Call Me a Hillbilly,” 4; Rayburn, “Hillbillies,” 27; Kirkendall, “Who’s a Hillbilly,” 22; Doug Johnson, “Hillbilly Jokes Start Opinion War in Ozarks,” Springfield News-Leader, 14 Jan. 2001, 6B; “Picture Guidebook: Missouri’s Annual Festival of Ozark Craftsmen,” Silver Dollar City, ca. 1970, Shepard Room Collection.

16. Moore v. Moore, 337SW 2d 781 (1960).

17. Stone County Historical Society, History of Stone County, Missouri, 236; “Political Shepherd of the Hills,” 26; Treese, Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1819.

18. Stone County Historical Society, History of Stone County, Missouri, 236–237.

19. “Genuine Folks,” 20.

20. “Hillbilly” (Rayburn’s Ozark Guide), 4.

21. “Hillbillies—To Be or Not to Be,” 12. In one of the first issues of the Ozarks Mountaineer, a native Ozarker added further nuance to the magazine’s negation of the hillbilly idiom. Cora Pinkley Call asserted that despite outsider characterizations, there exists a great diversity of people and lifestyles in the region, and thus the mountaineer is “not a curiosity.” Although the author sought to debunk a variety of stereotypes, she did conclude that two overarching regional attributes could be identified—a “strength of character” and a “oneness of purpose to serve the Almighty.” See Call, “We Are Mountaineers, Not Hill-Billies,” 10.

22. “Jim M. Owen Dies; King of the Hillbillies,” Springfield Leader & Press, 12 July 1972, 4B; Owen, Jim Owen’s Hillbilly Humor, 18, 17. Iterating Owen’s belief in a hillbilly ideology that embraces both hard work and robust play, southwestern Missouri native Karen Mahan wrote in 1990, “I am proud to bear the title of an ‘Ozark Hillbilly.’ . . . Hillbillies have been portrayed as lazy, dirty, and ignorant; nothing could be further from the truth. The hillbilly has to work twice as hard as his city cousin just to get by. . . . The city cousin believes himself to be smart, but he’s the one who works for 40 years in the city so he can retire next door to the hillbilly. The hillbilly spends his whole life working and playing in the hills he loves.” See Mahan, “Hillbilly Heart,” 47.

23. Rafferty, Ozarks, 55–57.

24. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 21–26, 61.

25. Ibid., 163. Numerous scholars have attempted to rework Weber’s thesis to account for religious impulses that sanctioned consumption in addition to labor. This realignment has been most thoroughly effected by sociologist Colin Campbell in The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Campbell identified a “Purito-Romantic” personality that possessed the religious and emotional wherewithal to produce modern consumption. The author located this sentiment within early eighteenth-century Arminian stances spawned from Calvinism which stressed the benevolence instead of arbitrariness of God. This shift then allowed for the development of divinely sanctioned passion and, as a corollary, God-ordained consumption. Campbell claimed that, with the development of romanticism, God was divested from such emotionally driven morality and a worldview arose that assumed individuals could be morally improved by consuming and enacting a generalized humanitarianism.

26. Holiday quoted in The Ozarks: Just That Much Hillbilly in Me, dir. and prod. Mark Biggs, Southwest Missouri State Board of Directors, 1999, videocassette. The first verse of “Work for the Night Is Coming” declares, “Work for the night is coming / Work through the morning hours / Work while the dew is sparkling / Work mid springing flowers / Work when the day grows brighter / Work in the glowing sun / Work for the night is coming / When man’s work is done.” See Gilmore, “Environment of Work,” 8. The sentiment of this hymn is derived from a passage in John 9:4 (NRSV) when the gospel writer declared, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” In The Ozarks: Just That Much Hillbilly in Me, critique of the hillbilly image is offered by southwestern Missouri natives and scholars to provide a rounded portrait of the term. However, the back cover of the video’s case ultimately delineates the hillbilly as a virtuous construct accessible to Ozarkers and non-Ozarkers alike: “Through the interplay of archival images, music and commentary by historians, folklorists, artists and ordinary people, it becomes clear that traditional Ozarkers care deeply about what one participant in the film calls ‘those old American values’ of family, church, community and land. To the extent that we each share those values there’s just that much hillbilly in all of us.”

27. Embree, “Ozarks,” 1; Braden, “Remembering Minister U. G. Johnson,” 53. In the realm of Ozark education, no institution better illustrates the merger of religious sentiment and industriousness than the College of the Ozarks. Located just a few miles south of Branson, it was opened in 1907 as the School of the Ozarks. Initially, this Presbyterian-run facility was meant as a high school where youths could meet most of their educational expenses by working. Thus, academic learning and spiritual enhancement were supplemented by cooking, cleaning, plowing, harvesting, or a variety of other tasks. In 1958, a transition began to an institute of secondary education, and by the late 1960s, the School of the Ozarks was populated only by college-age students. In 1991, it changed its name to the College of the Ozarks, but it continued to combine religiously guided education with mandatory on-campus labor—an amalgamation that has provided the college with the nickname “Hard Work U.” On the history of the College of the Ozarks, see Godsey and Godsey, Flight of the Phoenix.

28. “Ozarks Diaries of a Methodist Circuit Rider,” 14; Hobbs, “Sadie McCoy Crank,” 6.

29. Blevins, Hill Folks, 58.

30. Ledbetter, “Experiences of a Country Preacher,” 12; Uncle Joe Cranfield quoted in Gilmore, Ozark Baptizings, Hangings, and Other Diversions, 81–82. For detailed accounts of brush arbor meetings in southwestern Missouri, see Robertson, “Campmeeting in the Ozarks,” and Bilyeu, “Hundred Nights Revival of 1933.”

31. West Plains (MO) Journal, 11 Feb. 1897; Emmett Yoeman quoted in Gilmore, Ozark Baptizings, Hangings, and Other Diversions, 78; Gilmore, Ozark Baptizings, Hangings, and Other Diversions, xxv. On the entertainment functions of revival preachers, see Weisberger, They Gathered at the River, and Moore, Selling God.

32. Owen, Jim Owen’s Hillbilly Humor, 99; “It’s Time for Our Annual Hootin’ an’ Hollarin’ Celebration”; Scott, “It’s a Brush Arbor Meeting,” 19; Holden, Hillbilly Preacher, 30, 57, 88.

33. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 163, 68. In post–Civil War southwestern Missouri, numerous vigilance committees formed to combat lawlessness. However, these groups sometimes became unruly in turn—a scenario best illustrated by Taney County’s Bald Knobbers in the 1880s. Originally assisting law-enforcement officials with the capture of criminals, they soon began to take justice into their own hands. In 1889, the Bald Knobbers killed two innocent men in Christian County and, because of these misdeeds, lost local and national support for their endeavors. On the Bald Knobbers, see Upton, Bald Knobbers.

34. Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 36, 72, 173.

35. Morrow, “For Fun and Profit,” 15; Morris, “Good Ol’ Hillbilly . . . ,” 188–189.

36. “Filling the Tourist with Bunk Stories”; Morrow and Myers-Phinney, Shepherd of the Hills Country, 200. Blevins, Hill Folks, 221.

37. J. K. Ross, “The Hill Billy,” White River Leader, 10 Sept. 1915; Spurlock, Over the Old Ozark Trails, 10.

38. Spurlock, Over the Old Ozark Trails, 59–60.

39. Saults, “Gently down the Stream,” 79; “Jim M. Owen Dies: King of the Hillbillies,” Springfield Leader & Press, 12 July 1972, 43. For a detailed description of an Owen Boat Line float trip written by a former guide, see Sare, Some Recollections of an Ozarks Float Trip Guide.

40. Jarman, “Idyll in the Ozarks,” 37, 94; Stallcup, “Famous Age of the Owen Boat Line,” 29–30. Owen’s trips were often described with the use of religious imagery, but on some occasions they exhibited explicit religious practice. For instance, he once entertained a party headed by a Roman Catholic bishop who filled his boat with candles, vestments, and sacred vessels. Each morning the cleric said morning mass on the gravel bars. See Jarman, “Idyll in the Ozarks,” 88.

41. Godsey, “King of the Floaters”; Madsen, Branson, 23–24. Attesting to the work-related ambiguities that pervade the hillbilly persona, the Life cover story on the Owen Boat Line described diligent guides who “did everything” for their guests while at the same time labeling the float trip as the “laziest kind of sport.” See “Life Goes Fishing.”

42. Owen, Jim Owen’s Hillbilly Humor, 8–9, 118; Saults, “Gently down the Stream,” 79. Paul Henning, the creator and producer of The Beverly Hillbillies, wrote a brief introduction to Jim Owen’s Hillbilly Humor.

43. Owen, Jim Owen’s Hillbilly Humor, 23, 19, 22, 118. An anecdote from this book best illustrates the author’s support for nondenominational religiosity. In this account, several farmers were discussing the merits of their town’s various churches and denominations. Many opinions were expressed, and then the elder of the group was asked his thoughts. He replied, “I’m thinking that there are three ways from here to the cotton gin. But when you get there, the ginner ain’t going to ask which way you took. He’s going to ask, ‘How good is your cotton?’” See ibid., 50.

44. Frank Farmer, “Day as No Other for Jim Owen,” Springfield News & Leader, 14 May 1967, A1; Brim, “Plumb Nellie Days”; “Jim M. Owen Dies,” 47.

45. Williamson, Hillbillyland, 37–38, 39–40, 62, 55; Harkins, Hillbilly, 160.

46. Harkins, Hillbilly, 161; Austin, “Real Beverly Hillbillies”; Parker, “Shangri-La,” 23.

47. Harkins, “Hillbilly in the Living Room,” 99–109; “Come ‘n Listen to My Story ‘bout a Man Named . . . Paul.”

48. Harkins, “Hillbilly in the Living Room,” 114; Newcomb, “Appalachia on Television,” 322–323. Although Newcomb posits a rural wisdom tradition in The Beverly Hillbillies ethos, he also points to numerous negative stereotypes that permeate the show. Ultimately, he concludes that its “real viciousness” is not the making fun of mountaineers. Instead, because the characters’ morality is like the “simple virtue of children,” the harm comes in infantilizing adult populations of southerners and thereby projecting viewers’ desires for lost innocence (323–324). Other scholars of Appalachia have presented a much less nuanced take on the program. Commenting on The Beverly Hillbillies and a host of other media representations of the region, David Whisnant stated, “In their gross insensitivity to the feelings of Appalachian people, to their spiritual and material needs, and to the richness and variety of their culture, the media have been agents of a broader pattern of cultural imperialism.” See Whisnant, “Ethnicity and the Recovery of Regional Identity in Appalachia,” 129.

49. Lewis, “Golden Hillbillies,” 31; “Corn Is Green,” 70. Reflecting on the dialectic of meaning found within The Beverly Hillbillies’ characterizations, eastern Tennessee correspondent and radio commentator Mack Morris wrote, “We alternately seem to swing, as a regional group, from one image to another in the eyes of much of the rest of the nation. . . . This swing from one extreme to the other occurs with remarkable regularity . . . and is enough to set up a sort of schizophrenia—as a matter of fact, I think it has, in us and in the rest of the country regarding us—which may explain the popularity of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’” Quoted in Day, “Pride and Poverty,” 376.

50. “Back to the Hills” (episode of The Beverly Hillbillies); Herschend, interview.

51. Cook, Welcome to Branson, 156–157.

52. Guest comments, Presleys’ Country Jubilee, Oct. 2004–May 2005, in the author’s collection.

53. Robbins, “A Lyin’ to Them Tourists,” 82.

54. Ron Sylvester, “Branson’s Style Definition Changes with Musical Scene,” Springfield News-Leader, 23 May 1993, 1F; Sanders, interview; Cook, Welcome to Branson, 157.

55. Jane Bennett, “How to Be a Professional Hillbilly,” Springfield Leader & Press, 6 Sept. 1970, 1C, 4C; Fredrick, Ozarks Hillbilly Editor, 176–179.

56. Bennett, “How to Be a Professional Hillbilly,” 1C, 4C.

57. Fredrick, Ozarks Hillbilly Editor, 179; Bennett, “How to Be a Professional Hillbilly,” 1C, 4C; Wright, Shepherd of the Hills, 13–14.

58. Williamson, Hillbillyland, 27.

59. Dorothy Roe, “Ozark Hillbilly: Tycoon with ‘Fringe Benefits,’” Springfield Daily News, 9 Aug. 1965. This notion of hillbilly industriousness has also been invoked outside the parameters of the tourism industry. For instance, in 1995 Joe McNabb published Ozark Hillbilly CEO: An Autobiography. McNabb was born in 1913 in Cotter, Arkansas, and spent his early boyhood on the White River. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Stone County. After a stint in the navy, he began a career as an engineer and accepted a job with the Guy F. Atkinson Company in 1943. While with this firm, he served as construction manager for the Mangla Dam project in West Pakistan (the largest earth-filled dam in the world at the time), became company president in 1975, and was elected CEO in 1979. Echoing sentiments of vigorous work and hearty play offered by many Ozarkers, McNabb wrote, “Hillbillies are incredibly industrious. They are the type of people who would clear the trees from a little patch of ground and use the trees to build a house (usually a log home). Then they would plow the soil around the house and sow corn to make their favorite drink. . . . Hillbillies work hard and play hard. When they wanted to have some fun they cleared a spot in the woods, sawed up some logs, and built themselves a platform for dancing.” See McNabb, Ozark Hillbilly CEO, 12.

60. Harkins, “Hillbilly in the Living Room,” 100; Jones, Dispossessed, 209, 212; Votaw, “Hillbillies Invade Chicago,” 64–66; Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color, 4.

61. Rafferty, Ozarks, 41–66.

62. “‘Queen of the Hillbillies’ Reigns No More,” Springfield Leader & Press, 22 Feb. 1979, 1B; May Kennedy McCord, “Hillbilly Heartbeats,” Springfield Leader & Press, 6 Aug. 1933.

63. McCord, “Hillbilly Heartbeats” (in Rayburn’s Ozark Guide), 33; Godsey and Godsey, “Queen of the Hillbillies,” 15, 26; Pyles, “Remembering May Kennedy McCord,” 68.

64. Stone County Historical Society, History of Stone County, Missouri, 238; McCord, “Hillbilly Heartbeats,” Ozark Life, Jan. 1930, 16.

65. McCord, “Vanishing Ozarker,” 55.

66. Rayburn, Ozark Country, 36; Rayburn, “Progress in the Ozarks,” 3; Simpson, “Otto Ernest Rayburn,” 164; Burnett, When the Presbyterians Came to Kingston, 38–39.

67. Simpson, “Otto Ernest Rayburn,” 162–163; Burnett, When the Presbyterians Came to Kingston, 186–187.

68. Ron Sylvester, “Setting the Stage,” Springfield News-Leader, 9 July 1994, 1G, 10G; U.S. Census Bureau, Taney County, Missouri, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics, 2000 (Washington, DC: GPO, 2000); U.S. Census Bureau, Stone County, Missouri, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics, 2000 (Washington, DC: GPO, 2000); Smith, 1A. On occasion, contemporary commentators still connect southwestern Missouri culture to an Anglo-Saxon heritage. For instance, travel writer Fred Pfister wrote in 2002 that “like their Celtic ancestors,” these modern-day Ozarkers are “passionate about love, politics, and religion” and can be “deeply stirred by the natural beauty of the hills or be emotionally responsive to music and the spoken word.” See Pfister, Insiders’ Guide to Branson and the Ozark Mountains, 25.

69. Frommer, Arthur Frommer’s Branson, 34; Laskas, “Branson in My Rearview Mirror,” 174; Bill Smith, “Branson Attracts Few Blacks,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 July 1995, 1A. Other black entertainers in Branson include doo-wop group The Platters and Nedra Culp, a soul singer who has won the city’s “Vocalist of the Year” award on several occasions.

70. Tom Uhlenbrock, “From Japan with Love . . . for Country Music,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 21 Apr. 2002, T1; Morrissey, “King of Branson,” 72; Booe, “A Fiddlin,’” 21.

71. Shoji Tabuchi Theatre press packet, 1998, in the author’s collection; Felton, “Shoji Tabuchi Features Awesome Japanese Drumming,” L10; Toni Stroud, “Branson, Mo.: Many Attractions but Music Is King,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, 14 July 1996, 4G.

72. Freihofer, “Shoji Tabuchi.”

73. Carolyn Tuft and Joe Holleman, “Inside the Christian Identity Movement,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5 Mar. 2000, A8.

74. Ibid.

75. Linda Leicht, “Branson Venues Should Spurn White Supremacists,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 Apr. 2001, 1B.

76. Masterson, Arkansas Folklore, 187–189. According to folklorist William K. McNeil, authorship of the “Arkansas Traveler” is uncertain. He has argued that large portions of the dialogue predate the 1850s, with two of the exchanges going back to at least the early sixteenth century. See McNeil, “By the Ozark Trail,” 21.

77. Randolph, We Always Lie to Strangers, 3; Randolph, Ozarks, 22, v. Randolph’s penchant for premodern Ozark society and culture was blatantly exhibited on page 4 of The Ozarks when he stated that the region is “the most backward and deliberately unprogressive” in the United States.

78. Rayburn, Forty Years in the Ozarks, 89–90.

79. Randolph, Funny Stories about Hillbillies, 5–6.

80. Presley, interview.

CHAPTER 7. “THE AROMA OF GOD’S SPIRIT”

1. “BransonFunTrip’s Roots Are Secure in the Blessings of Branson,” media release, 23 Feb. 2006, in the author’s collection.

2. “Branson Landing Is Taking Off,” 15; Evans, “Welcome to Branson,” 13.

3. H. Donald Gabriel, “The Branson Manifesto,” 6 Mar. 2006, n.p., in the author’s collection.

4. Lois Romano, “Branson, Mo., Looks beyond RVs and Buffets,” Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2005, A3.

5. Ibid.; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson Courts Religious Groups,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 Aug. 1999, 1A, 7A.

6. Szuszalski, interview. Although Trinity Tours caters to the Christian tourist more thoroughly than any other area business, many businesses include church group tours and conferences as an area of specialization. For instance, in 1998 Ozark Mountain Tour and Travel brought in five conventions of religious organizations—a Christian constituency that amounted to more than 10,000 individuals. See Buckstaff, “Branson Courts Religious Groups,” 1A.

7. Worden, “Stafford Family Values,” 58. The term “show-service,” which obviously implies the mixture of traditional institutional church ceremonies and procedures with patented elements of Branson’s variety show entertainment, is borrowed from Jessica H. Howard. See Howard, “America’s Hometown,” 95.

8. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Sunday Morning Shows Ruffle Feathers,” Springfield News-Leader, 11 Aug. 2001, 7B, 8B; Linda Leicht, “Branson Taking the Spiritual Lead,” Springfield News-Leader, 4 Mar. 2006, 1C. Other show-services not discussed in this chapter include “Celebrate Sunday,” a worship service held at the Remember When Theatre (located in the IMAX Entertainment Complex) and hosted by Sue O’Neal (the wife of Richard Daniel Clark, who created the “American Highrise” mural described in Chapter 4); a gathering conducted by New Horizons Ministry at the Welk Theater and Resort; “The Sunday Happening,” led by Allen Edwards and offered at the Golden Corral restaurant; a service at the Majestic Theater led by pastor Dave Hamner; and entertainer Travis Loewen’s Cowboy Chapel, a site located at the Canyon Creek Ranch which uses horses and steer to impart a religious message.

9. Buckstaff, “Sunday Morning Shows Ruffle Feathers,” 8B.

10. Brunson, “Behind the Boom in Branson, Mo.,” 47–48.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., 48; Fairchild, interview.

13. Fairchild, interview; Buckstaff, “Sunday Morning Shows Ruffle Feathers,” 8B.

14. Stauffer, interview.

15. Ibid.; Smith, Christian America, 45; “Prayer of Agreement”; Stauffer, interview.

16. Stauffer, interview.

17. Ibid.; Todd, interview; Dawn Peterson, “Revival Fires Develops Faithful Following,” Springfield News-Leader, 10 Mar. 1998, 10A.

18. Peterson, “Revival Fires Develops Faithful Following,” 1A, 10A; Dawn Peterson, “Revival Expects Record Crowd,” Springfield News-Leader, 31 Mar. 1998, 1A; Dawn Peterson, “Revival’s Energy Renews Faith of Thousands,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 Apr. 1998, 1A, 6A. Todd’s camp meetings bear striking similarities to area show-services, and he actually considered entering that market. He has claimed that the Herschend family of Silver Dollar City, who once owned the Grand Palace, wanted “that [venue] to be used for God.” In response, he had “an offer on the table” to purchase the theater and use it for weekly prayer gatherings but subsequently backed off the idea because of his advanced age. See Todd, interview.

19. Linda Leicht, “Ten Commandments Judge to Speak in Branson,” Springfield News-Leader, 14 Mar. 2004, 1B; Jeff Arnold, “Humansville Stands United on Ten Commandments,” Springfield News-Leader, 2 Apr. 2004, 1B.

20. Peterson, “Revival Expects Record Crowd,” 7A; Robert Kelly, “Couple Delivering Bibles to Russian People,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 13 Mar. 1995, 1; Todd, interview. Sunday show-services and Todd’s revivals are only two of the many mergers of theater entertainment and more formal expressions of Christianity in Branson. For instance, in 1998, JoDee Herschend, wife of the Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation’s executive vice president, started a venture similar to the Revival Fires camp meetings which was also held at the Grand Palace. Titled “1st Sunday,” this event featured Branson-style family entertainment offered by local musicians, highlighted messages of salvation preached by speakers from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and ended with an altar call. Held on the first Sunday of the month from March through October, the gathering was meant to convey the spiritual nature of Branson to tourists and to facilitate experiences of faith in a “nonthreatening environment.” Although these services often attracted as many as two thousand people, they are no longer held. However, JoDee Herschend continues to engage in Christian outreach in the region through her Jesus Saves Inc. ministry. Additionally, since 1996 a National Day of Prayer celebration has been conducted at an area theater. The 1998 event drew fifteen hundred people and included praise and songs by Wayne Newton and Tony Orlando. It also featured sermons by local clergy which asked God’s blessing for the nation’s military, government officials, educators, families, and media representatives. See Dawn Peterson, “1st Sunday Wins Praise,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 June 1998, 1B, and Dawn Peterson, “Prayer Show Draws Believers,” Springfield News-Leader, 8 May 1998, 1B.

21. Glazier, “Methodists Moved Out of a Dance Hall,” 3; Keithly, e-mail interview. Glazier’s brief article drew further correlations between Branson United Methodist Church and entertainment venues on the Strip by featuring a photo of its similarly styled facade alongside images of the Mel Tillis Theater, the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre, the Johnny Cash Theatre, and the Grand Palace.

22. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Churches Being Fruitful, Multiplying,” Springfield News-Leader, 23 Feb. 2002, 1A; Bucher, interview. Our Lady of the Lakes is not the only area church to have recently rebuilt with the aid of tourist dollars. The Hollister Church of Christ moved into a new sanctuary in the spring of 2002 with the partial assistance of vacationer monies. Moreover, the First Baptist Church of Forsyth doubled the size of its building and moved it closer to Branson in the summer of 2002 with the use of similar funds. See Buckstaff, “Churches Being Fruitful, Multiplying,” 1A, 14A.

23. “Mel Tillis Theater Becomes Church,” 8; Plank, e-mail interview.

24. Plank, e-mail interview.

25. Howell, “Hobby Lobby’s Heavenly Ascension”; “Statement of Purpose” (Hobby Lobby, Inc.).

26. Bob Baysinger, “Hobby Lobby Chain Stores Purchase Vacant Theater for Growing Church,” BP (Baptist Press) News, 25 July 2003, www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=16369 (accessed on 29 June 2004).

27. Kathryn Buckstaff, “‘The Promise’ Passes 1,000th Show,” Springfield News-Leader, 21–23 Aug. 1998, 19E; Mark Marymount, “Show Mixes Religion, Pageantry,” Springfield-News Leader, 2–4 Oct. 1998, 18E; Freihofer, “Church Leaders,” 8.

28. Buckstaff, “‘The Promise’ Passes 1,000th Show,” 19E; Tipton, “The Promise Returns,” 24–25; “‘The Promise’ Customer Comments.” Beginning in 2000, The Promise briefly shared its stage with Two from Galilee, a musical from the same production company which tells the story of Mary and Joseph prior to the birth of their son.

29. Tipton, “The Promise Returns,” 25. In 1998, The Promise was named Branson’s “Production of the Year,” and Randy Brooks was honored as the “Male Entertainer of the Year” and the “Male Vocalist of the Year.” In addition, that same year the show’s cast received the “Gospel Artists of the Year” award at the All-America Music Awards, and it was chosen as one of the top three destination attractions in the United States by the American Bus Association.

30. The ambiguities of The Promise’s religious pageant/ministry and its tenuous existence as a profit-seeking and soul-saving venture were further accentuated by Jeff Hurst, cofounder of Branson’s Victory Mountain Ministries: “The key is, The Promise is a for-profit entertainment production. They’re not a ministry. It ministers and fits in the town well, but it’s an expensive production and it’s for-profit.” See Jeff Hurst, interview.

31. Rotrock, interview.

32. “Church Leaders Praise Van Burch,” 26.

33. “Branson Theaters Go Gospel,” 52. In 2003, I posted a query to an online Branson tourism forum which asked, “I am interested in the religious content of Branson shows and attractions. I wondered if anyone had thoughts on this aspect of the tourism industry?” The tourist quotation offered in this paragraph was taken from a body of thirty-three responses to this inquiry. Other comments included: “You can just sense a Christian atmosphere in Branson”; the city’s theaters possess “a very Christian attitude”; “Anyone believing in God would feel comfortable in Branson and in the shows”; people love Branson’s religiously oriented attractions because they remind them of “everyday pleasures”; and “With so many non-Christian people/places/things out in the world, it [Branson] really makes for a nice change.” All replies can be found on the GetAwaySaver Forums at www.getawaysaver.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=5670.

34. Freihofer, “From ‘Sorta’ . . . to Saved,” 37.

35. See the following articles by Kathryn Buckstaff in the Springfield News-Leader: “‘I Am Just Amazed,’” 27 May 2006, 1A; “Sprawling New Subdivision Throttles Up Branson Boom,” 10 Jan. 2006, 1A; “Branson Braces for Next Boom,” 16 Oct. 2005, 1A; “Convention Center Bonds Sell Quickly,” 25 Aug. 2005, 1B.

36. Sterling Marketing Group, Inc., “Branson: A Place, a Destination, a Brand,” 26 Oct. 2004, marketing report, in the author’s collection.

37. See the following articles in the Springfield News-Leader: “Who Visits Branson,” 8 Sept. 1992, 6B; “The Tourism Boom,” 4 Apr. 1992, 6F; “Branson Visitor Breakdown for 1994,” 2 Feb. 1995, 1A; “Survey: Branson is THE Place to Be,” 24 July 1992, 1A.

38. Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, Branson/Lakes Area 2005 Fact Sheet.

39. Buckstaff, “‘I Am Just Amazed,’” 1A; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Culture of Values Key to Branson’s Success,” Springfield News-Leader, 27 Feb. 2005, 46L.

40. Buckstaff, “Culture of Values Key to Branson’s Success,” 46L; Buckstaff, “Branson Braces for Next Boom,” 1A; Kathryn Buckstaff, “Star-Studded Beginning,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 Oct. 2005, 1B; “Luxury Condo Demand Drives Record Sales,” 5.

41. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Additional Ads May Draw More Visitors,” Springfield News-Leader, 31 Mar. 2006, 5B; Niebuhr, Social Sources of Denominationalism; Laurie Goodstein and David D. Kirkpatrick, “On a Christian Mission to the Top,” New York Times (online edition only), 22 May 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/national/class/EVANGELICALS-FINAL.html?ex=1274414400&en=a745e9fcce50f35b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss> (accessed on 10 July 2006); Corbin, “Impact of the American Dream on Evangelical Ethics,” 340.

42. Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas, 89–109; Gabriel, “Branson Manifesto.”

43. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Branson’s Construction Building Future Prosperity,” Springfield News-Leader, 26 Feb. 2006, 10J; Buckstaff, “Culture of Values Key to Branson’s Success,” 46L.

44. Kathryn Buckstaff, “Forty-Eight Stores Ready for Ribbon Cutting,” Springfield News-Leader, 25 May 2006, 1A; Romano, “Branson, Mo., Looks beyond RVs and Buffets,” A3.